THE  LAST  SPIKE 


BOOKS    BY   CY    WARMAN 
Published  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 

THE  LAST  SPIKE,  AND  OTHER   RAILROAD 

STORIES. 
TALES  OF  AN  ENGINEER,  WITH  RHYMES  OF 

THE  RAIL. 
FRONTIER  STORIES. 
THE    EXPRESS    MESSENGER,   AND    OTHER 

TALES  OF  THE  RAIL. 

THE  WHITE  MAIL:  A  RAILROAD  NOVEL. 
SHORT  RAILS. 

Each  lamo,  $1.25. 


THE 


LAST   SPIKE 


AND     OTHER 


RAILROAD   STORIES 


BY 

CY    WARMAN 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1906 


Copyright,  1906, 
B'Y  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  February,  1906 


THK     UNIvr.RSITY     PKES«,    CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  LAST  SPIKE -   i 

THE  BELLE  OF  ATHABASCA 31 

PATHFINDING  IN  THE  NORTHWEST 49 

THE  CURB'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 61 

THE  MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 85 

CHASING  THE  WHITE  MAIL 107 

OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 119 

THE  IRON  HORSE  AND  THE  TROLLEY  ....  135 

IN  THE  BLACK  CANON 151 

JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON 165 

THE  GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE  181 

THE  STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 193 

ON  THE  LIMITED 211 

THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 219 

NUMBER  THREE 237 

THE  STUFF  THAT  STANDS 253 

THE  MILWAUKEE  RUN 273 


938173 


fLast 


THE   LAST   SPIKE 


"  '  I  SHEN  there  is  nothing  against  him  but  his 
-*•  poverty?" 

"  And  general  appearance." 

"  He  's  the  handsomest  man  in  America." 

"  Yes,  that  is  against  him,  and  the  fact  that  he 
is  always  in  America.  He  appears  to  be  afraid 
to  get  out." 

"  He  's  the  bravest  boy  in  the  world/'  she  re 
plied,  her  face  still  to  the  window.  "  He  risked 
his  life  to  drag  me  from  under  the  ice,"  she 
added,  with  a  girl's  loyalty  to  her  hero  and  a 
woman's  pride  in  the  man  she  loves. 

"  Well,  I  must  own  he  has  nerve,"  her  father 
added,  "  or  he  never  would  have  accepted  my 
conditions." 

"And  what  were  these  conditions,  pray?"  the 
young  woman  asked,  turning  and  facing  her 
father,  who  sat  watching  her  every  move  and 
gesture, 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


"  First  of  all,  he  must  do  something  ;  and  do 
it  off  his  own  bat.  His  old  father  spent  his  last 
dollar  to  educate  this  young  rascal,  to  equip  him 
for  the  battle  of  life,  and  his  sole  achievement  is 
a  curve  that  nobody  can  find.  Now  I  insist  he 
shall  do  something,  and  I  have  given  him  five 
years  for  the  work." 

"  Five  years  !  "  she  gasped,  as  she  lost  herself 
in  a  big  chair. 

"  He  is  to  have  time  to  forget  you,  and  you 
are  to  have  ample  opportunity  to  forget  him, 
which  you  will  doubtless  do,  for  you  are  not  to 
meet  or  communicate  with  each  other  during 
this  period  of  probation." 

"  Did  he  promise  this?" 

"Upon  his  honor." 

"  And  if  he  break  that  promise?  " 

"  Ah,  then  he  would  be  without  honor,  and 
you  would  not  marry  him."  A  moment's  silence 
followed,  broken  by  a  long,  deep  sigh  that  ended 
in  little  quivering  waves,  like  the  faint  ripples 
that  reach  the  shore,  —  the  whispered  echoes  of 
the  sobbing  sea. 

"O  father,  it  is  cruel!  cruel !  cruel !"  she 
cried,  raising  a  tearful  face  to  him. 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


"  It  is  justice,  stern  justice  ;  to  you,  my  dear, 
to  myself,  and  this  fine  young  fellow  who  has 
stolen  your  heart.  Let  him  show  himself  worthy 
of  you,  and  you  have  my  blessing  and  my  fortune." 

"  Is  he  going  soon?" 

"  He  is  gone." 

The  young  woman  knelt  by  her  father's  chair 
and  bowed  her  head  upon  his  knee,  quivering 
with  grief. 

This  stern  man,  who  had  humped  himself  and 
made  a  million,  put  a  hand  on  her  head  and 
said  : 

"  Ma-Mary  "  —  and  then  choked  up. 

II 

THE  tent  boy  put  a  small  white  card  down  on 
General  Dodge's  desk  one  morning,  upon  which 
was  printed : 

J.  BRADFORD,  C.  E. 

The  General,  who  was  at  that  time  chief  en 
gineer  in  charge  of  the  construction  of  the  first 
Pacific  Railroad,  turned  the  bit  of  pasteboard 
over.  It  seemed  so  short  and  simple.  He 
ran  his  eyes  over  a  printed  list,  alphabetically 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


arranged,  of  directors,  promoters,  statesmen, 
capitalists,  and  others  who  were  in  the  habit  of 
signing  "letters  of  recommendation  "  for  young 
men  who  wanted  to  do  something  and  begin 
well  up  the  ladder. 

There  were  no  Bradfords.  Burgess  and  Blod- 
gett  were  the  only  B's,  and  the  General  was 
glad.  His  desk  was  constantly  littered  with  the 
"  letters  "  of  tenderfeet,  and  his  office-tent  filled 
with  their  portmanteaus,  holding  dress  suits  and 
fine  linen. 

Here  was  a  curiosity  —  a  man  with  no  press 
notices,  no  character,  only  one  initial  and  two 
chasers. 

"Show  him  in,"  said  the  General,  addressing 
the  one  luxury  his  hogan  held.  A  few  moments 
later  the  chief  engineer  was  looking  into  the  eye 
of  a  young  man,  who  returned  the  look  and 
asked  frankly,  and  without  embarrassment,  for 
work  with  the  engineers. 

"Impossible,  young  man  —  full  up,"  was  the 
brief  answer. 

"  Now,"  thought  the  General,  "  he  '11  begin 
to  beat  his  breast  and  haul  out  his  '  pull.'  "  The 
young  man  only  smiled  sadly,  and  said,  "  I  'm 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


sorry.  I  saw  an  '  ad '  for  men  in  the  Bee  yes 
terday,  and  hoped  to  be  in  time,"  he  added, 
rising. 

"  Men  !  Yes,  we  want  men  to  drive  mules 
and  stakes,  to  grade,  lay  track,  and  fight  Indians 
—  but  engineers  ?  We  Ve  got  'em  to  use  for 
cross-ties." 

"  I  am  able  and  willing  to  do  any  of  these 
things  —  except  the  Indians  —  and  I  '11  tackle 
that  if  nothing  else  offers." 

"There's  a  man  for  you,"  said  the  General 
to  his  assistant  as  Bradford  went  out  with  a  note 
to  Jack  Casement,  who  was  handling  the 
graders,  teamsters,  and  Indian  fighters.  "  No 
influential  friends,  no  baggage,  no  character, 
just  a  man,  able  to  stand  alone  —  a  real  man  in 
corduroys  and  flannels." 

Coming  up  to  the  gang,  Bradford  singled  out 
the  man  who  was  swearing  loudest  and  delivered 
the  note.  "  Fall  in,"  said  the  straw  boss,  and 
Bradford  got  busy.  He  could  handle  one  end 
of  a  thirty-foot  rail  with  ease,  and  before  night, 
without  exciting  the  other  workmen  or  making 
any  show  of  superiority,  he  had  quietly,  almost 
unconsciously,  become  the  leader  of  the  track- 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 

laying  gang.  The  foreman  called  Casement's 
attention  to  the  new  man,  and  Casement  watched 
him  for  five  minutes. 

Two  days  later  a  big  teamster,  having  found  a 
bottle  of  fire-water,  became  separated  from  his 
reasoning  faculties,  crowded  under  an  old  dump- 
cart,  and  fell  asleep. 

"  Say,  young  fellow/'  said  the  foreman,  pant 
ing  up  the  grade  to  where  Bradford  was  placing 
a  rail,  "  can  you  skin  mules  ?  " 

"  I  can  drive  a  team,  if  that 's  what  you 
mean,"  was  the  reply. 

"  How  many?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Bradford,  with  his  quiet  smile, 
"  when  I  was  a  boy  I  used  to  drive  six  on  the 
Montpelier  stage." 

So  he  took  the  eight-mule  team  and  amazed 
the  multitude  by  hauling  heavier  loads  than  any 
other  team,  because  he  knew  how  to  handle  his 
whip  and  lines,  and  because  he  was  careful  and 
determined  to  succeed.  Whatever  he  did  he  did 
it  with  both  hands,  backed  up  by  all  the  enthusi 
asm  of  youth  and  the  unconscious  strength  of  an 
absolutely  faultless  physique,  and  directed  by  a 
remarkably  clear  brain.  When  the  timekeeper 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


got  killed,  Bradford  took  his  place,  for  he  could 
"  read  writin',"  an  accomplishment  rare  among 
the  laborers.  When  the  bookkeeper  got  drunk 
he  kept  the  books,  working  overtime  at  night. 

In  the  rush  and  roar  of  the  fight  General 
Dodge  had  forgotten  the  young  man  in  cordu 
roys  until  General  Casement  called  his  attention 
to  the  young  man's  work.  The  engineers  wanted 
Bradford,  and  Casement  had  kicked,  and,  fear 
ing  defeat,  had  appealed  to  the  chief.  They 
sent  for  Bradford.  Yes,  he  was  an  engineer, 
he  said,  and  when  he  said  it  they  knew  it  was 
true.  He  was  quite  willing  to  remain  in  the 
store  department  until  he  could  be  relieved,  but, 
naturally,  he  would  prefer  field  work. 

He  got  it,  and  at  once.  Also,  he  got  some 
Indian  fighting.  In  less  than  a  year  he  was 
assigned  to  the  task  of  locating  a  section  of  the 
line  west  of  the  Platte.  Coming  in  on  a  con 
struction  train  to  make  his  first  report,  the  train 
was  held  up,  robbed,  and  burned  by  a  band  of 
Sioux.  Bradford  and  the  train  crew  were 
rescued  by  General  Dodge  himself,  who  hap 
pened  to  be  following  them  with  his  "  arsenal " 
car,  and  who  heard  at  Plumb  Creek  of  the  fight 


10  THE   LAST  SPIKE 

and  of  the  last  stand  that  Bradford  and  his 
handful  of  men  were  making  in  the  way  car, 
which  they  had  detached  and  pushed  back 
from  the  burning  train.  Such  cool  heroism  as 
Bradford  displayed  here  could  not  escape  the 
notice  of  so  trained  an  Indian  fighter  as  General 
Dodge.  Bradford  was  not  only  complimented, 
but  was  invited  into  the  General's  private  car. 
The  General's  admiration  for  the  young  path 
finder  grew  as  he  received  a  detailed  and  com 
prehensive  report  of  the  work  being  done  out 
on  the  pathless  plains.  He  knew  the  worth  of 
this  work,  because  he  knew  the  country,  for  he 
had  spent  whole  months  together  exploring  it 
while  in  command  of  that  territory,  where  he  had 
been  purposely  placed  by  General  Sherman,  with 
out  whose  encouragement  the  West  could  not 
have  been  known  at  that  time,  and  without  whose 
help  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  United  States 
army  the  road  could  not  have  been  built. 

As  the  pathfinders  neared  the  Rockies  the 
troops  had  to  guard  them  constantly.  The  en 
gineers  reconnoitered,  surveyed,  located,  and 
built  inside  the  picket  lines.  The  men  marched 
to  work  to  the  tap  of  the  drum,  stacked  arms  on 


THE  LAST  SPIKE  II 

the  dump,  and  were  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to 
fall  in  and  fight.  Many  of  the  graders  were  old 
soldiers,  and  a  little  fight  only  rested  them.  In 
deed  there  was  more  military  air  about  this  work 
than  had  been  or  has  since  been  about  the  build 
ing  of  a  railroad  in  this  country.  It  was  one  big 
battle,  from  the  first  stake  west  of  Omaha  to  the 
last  spike  at  Promontory  —  a  battle  that  lasted 
five  long  years ;  and  if  the  men  had  marked  the 
graves  of  those  who  fell  in  that  fierce  fight  their 
monuments,  properly  distributed,  might  have 
served  as  mile-posts  on  the  great  overland  route 
to-day.  But  the  mounds  were  unmarked,  most  of 
them,  and  many  there  were  who  had  no  mounds, 
and  whose  home  names  were  never  known  even 
to  their  comrades.  If  this  thing  had  been  done 
on  British  soil,  and  all  the  heroic  deeds  had  been 
recorded  and  rewarded,  a  small  foundry  could 
have  been  kept  busy  beating  out  V.  C.'s.  They 
could  not  know,  these  silent  heroes  fighting  far 
out  in  the  wilderness,  what  a  glorious  country 
they  were  conquering  —  what  an  empire  they 
were  opening  for  all  the  people  of  the  land. 
Occasionally  there  came  to  the  men  at  the  front 
old,  worn  newspapers,  telling  wild  stories  of  the 


12  THE  LAST  SPIKE 

failure  of  the  enterprise.  At  other  times  they 
heard  of  changes  in  the  Board  of  Directors,  the 
election  of  a  new  President,  tales  of  jobs  and 
looting,  but  they  concerned  themselves  only  with 
the  work  in  hand.  No  breath  of  scandal  ever 
reached  these  pioneer  trail-makers,  or,  if  it  did,  it 
failed  to  find  a  lodging-place,  but  blew  by.  Am 
ple  opportunity  they  had  to  plunder,  to  sell  sup 
plies  to  the  Indians  or  the  Mormons,  but  no  one 
of  the  men  who  did  the  actual  work  of  bridging 
the  continent  has  ever  been  accused  of  a  selfish 
or  dishonest  act. 

During  his  second  winter  of  service  Bradford 
slept  away  out  in  the  Rockies,  studying  the 
snowslides  and  drifts.  For  three  winters  they 
did  this,  and  in  summer  they  set  stakes,  keeping 
one  eye  out  for  Indians  and  the  other  for  wash 
outs,  and  when,  after  untold  hardships,  privation, 
and  youth-destroying  labor,  they  had  located  a 
piece  of  road,  out  of  the  path  of  the  slide  and 
the  washout,  a  well-groomed  son  of  a  politician 
would  come  up  from  the  Capital,  and,  in  the 
capacity  of  Government  expert,  condemn  it  all. 
Then  strong  men  would  eat  their  whiskers  and 
the  weaker  ones  would  grow  blasphemous  and 


THE   LAST  SPIKE  13 

curse  the  country  that  afforded  no  facilities  for 
sorrow-drowning. 

Once,  at  the  end  of  a  long,  hard  winter, 
when  spring  and  the  Sioux  came,  they  found 
Bradford  and  a  handful  of  helpers  just  breaking 
camp  in  a  sheltered  hollow  in  the  hills.  Hiding 
in  the  crags,  the  warriors  waited  until  Bradford 
went  out  alone  to  try  to  shoot  a  deer,  and  in 
cidentally  to  sound  a  drift,  and  then  they  sur 
rounded  him.  He  fought  until  his  gun  was 
unloaded,  and  then  emptied  his  revolver ;  but 
ever  dodging  and  crouching  from  tree  to  rock, 
the  red  men,  whose  country  he  and  his  com 
panions  had  invaded,  came  nearer  and  nearer. 
In  a  little  while  the  fight  was  hand  to  hand. 
There  was  not  the  faintest  show  for  escape ;  to 
be  taken  alive  was  to  be  tortured  to  death,  so  he 
fought  on,  clubbing  his  revolver  until  a  well- 
directed  blow  from  a  war  club  caught  the  gun, 
sent  it  whirling  through  the  top  of  a  nearby 
cedar,  and  left  the  pathfinder  empty-handed. 
The  chief  sprang  forward  and  lifted  his  hatchet 
that  had  caused  more  than  one  paleface  to  bite 
the  dust.  For  the  faintest  fraction  of  a  second 
it  stood  poised  above  Bradford's  head,  then  out 


shot  the  engineer's  strong  right   arm,  and   the 
Indian  lay  flat  six  feet  away. 

For  a  moment  the  warriors  seemed  helpless 
with  mingled  awe  and  admiration,  but  when 
Bradford  stooped  to  grab  his  empty  rifle  they 
came  out  of  their  trance.  A  dull  blow,  a  sense 
of  whirling  round  swiftly,  a  sudden  sunset,  stars 
—  darkness,  and  all  pain  had  gone  ! 


Ill 

WHEN  Bradford  came  to  they  were  fixing  him 
for  the  fun.  His  back  was  against  a  tree,  his  feet 
pinioned,  and  his  elbows  held  secure  by  a  raw 
hide  rope.  He  knew  what  it  meant.  He  knew 
by  the  look  of  joy  on  the  freshly  smeared  faces 
at  his  waking,  by  the  pitch-pine  wood  that  had 
been  brought  up,  and  by  the  fagots  at  his  feet. 
The  big  chief  who  had  felt  his  fist  came  up, 
grinning,  and  jabbed  a  buckhorn  cactus  against 
the  engineer's  thigh,  and  when  the  latter  tried  to 
move  out  of  reach  they  all  grunted  and  danced 
with  delight.  They  had  been  uneasy  lest  the 
white  man  might  not  wake. 

The  sun,  sailing  westward  in  a  burnished  sea 


THE  LAST  SPIKE 


'15 


of  blue,  seemed  to  stand  still  for  a  moment  and 
then  dropped  down  behind  the  range,  as  if  to 
escape  from  the  hellish  scene.  The  shadows 
served  only  to  increase  the  gloom  in  the  heart 
of  the  captive.  Glancing  over  his  shoulder 
toward  the  east,  he  observed  that  his  captors 
had  brought  him  down  near  to  the  edge  of  the 
plain.  Having  satisfied  themselves  that  their 
victim  had  plenty  of  life  left  in  him,  the  Indians 
began  to  arrange  the  fuel.  With  the  return  of 
consciousness  came  an  inexpressible  longing  to 
live.  Suddenly  his  iron  will  asserted  itself,  and 
appealing  to  his  great  strength,  surged  until  the 
rawhide  ropes  were  buried  in  his  flesh.  Not  for 
a  moment  while  he  stood  on  his  feet  and  fought 
them  on  the  morning  of  that  day  had  hope 
entirely  deserted  him.  Four  years  of  hardship, 
of  privation,  and  adventure  had  so  strengthened 
his  courage  that  to  give  up  was  to  die. 

Presently,  when  he  had  exhausted  his  strength 
and  sat  quietly,  the  Indians  went  on  with  the 
preliminaries.  The  gold  in  the  west  grew 
deeper,  the  shadows  in  the  foothills  darker,  as 
the  moments  sped.  Swiftly  the  captive's  mind 
ran  over  the  events  of  the  past  four  years.  This 


1 6  THE   LAST  SPIKE 

was  his  first  failure,  and  this  was  the  end  of  it 
all  —  of  the  years  of  working  and  waiting. 

Clenching  his  fists,  he  lifted  his  hot  face  to 
the  dumb  sky,  but  no  sound  escaped  from  his 
parched  and  parted  lips.  Suddenly  a  light  shone 
on  the  semicircle  of  feather-framed  faces  in 
front  of  him,  and  he  heard  the  familiar  crackling 
of  burning  boughs.  Glancing  toward  the  ground 
he  saw  that  the  fagots  were  on  fire.  He  felt  the 
hot  breath  of  flame,  and  then  for  the  first  time 
realized  what  torture  meant.  Again  he  surged, 
and  surged  again,  the  cedars  crackled,  the  red 
fiends  danced.  Another  effort,  the  rawhide 
parted  and  he  stood  erect.  With  both  hands 
freed  he  felt  new  strength,  new  hope.  He  tried 
to  free  himself  from  the  pyre,  but  his  feet  were 
fettered,  and  he  fell  among  his  captors.  Two  or 
three  of  them  seized  him,  but  he  shook  them  off 
and  stood  up  again. 

But  it  was  useless.  From  every  side  the  In 
dians  rushed  upon  him  and  bore  him  to  the 
ground.  Still  he  fought  and  struggled,  and  as 
he  fought  the  air  seemed  full  of  strange,  wild 
sounds,  of  shouts  and  shots  and  hoof-beating  on 
the  dry,  hard  earth.  He  seemed  to  see,  as 


THE   LAST  SPIKE  17 

through  a  veil,  scores  of  Indians,  Indians  afoot 
and  on  horseback,  naked  Indians  and  Indians 
in  soldier  clothes.  Once  he  thought  he  saw  a 
white  face  gleam  just  as  he  got  to  his  feet,  but 
at  that  moment  the  big  chief  stood  before  him, 
his  battle-axe  uplifted.  The  engineer's  head  was 
whirling.  Instinctively  he  tried  to  use  the  strong 
right  arm,  but  it  had  lost  its  cunning.  The  roar 
of  battle  grew  apace,  the  axe  descended,  the  left 
ami  went  up  and  took  the  blow  of  the  handle, 
but  the  edge  of  the  weapon  reached  over  and 
split  the  white  man's  chin.  As  he  fell  heavily 
to  the  earth  the  light  went  out  again. 

Save  for  the  stars  that  stood  above  him  it  was 
still  dark  when  Bradford  woke.  He  felt  blankets 
beneath  him,  and  asked  in  a  whisper  :  "  Who  's 
here?" 

"  Major  North,  me  call  him,"  said  the  Pawnee 
scout,  who  was  watching  over  the  wounded  man. 

A  moment  later  the  gallant  Major  was  leaning 
over  Bradford,  encouraging  him,  assuring  him 
that  he  was  all  right,  but  warning  him  of  the 
danger  of  making  the  least  bit  of  noise. 


1 8  THE  LAST  SPIKE 


IV 

WITH  all  his  strength  and  pluck,  it  took  time 
for  Bradford  to  recuperate.  His  next  work  was 
in  Washington,  where,  with  notes  and  maps,  his 
strong  personality  and  logical  arguments,  he 
caused  the  Government  to  overrule  an  expert 
who  wanted  to  change  an  important  piece  of 
road,  and  who  had  arbitrarily  fixed  the  meeting  of 
the  mountains  and  plains  far  up  in  the  foothills.1 

When  Bradford  returned  to  the  West  he  found 
that  the  whole  country  had  suddenly  taken  a 
great  and  growing  interest  in  the  transcontinen 
tal  line.  Many  of  the  leading  newspapers  had 
dug  up  their  old  war  correspondents  and  sent 
them  out  to  the  front. 

These  gifted  prevaricators  found  the  plain, 
unvarnished  story  of  each  day's  work  as  much  as 
they  cared  to  send  in  at  night,  for  the  builders 
were  now  putting  down  four  and  five  miles  of 
road  every  working  day.  Such  road  building 
the  world  had  never  seen,  and  news  of  it  now 

1  The  subsidy  from  the  Government  was  $>i 6,000  a 
mile  on  the  plains,  and  $48,000  a  mile  in  the  mountains. 


THE   LAST  SPIKE  19 

ran  round  the  earth.  At  night  these  tireless 
story-tellers  listened  to  the  strange  tales  told  by 
the  trail-makers,  then  stole  away  to  their  tents 
and  wrote  them  out  for  the  people  at  home, 
while  the  heroes  of  the  stories  slept. 

The  track- layers  were  now  climbing  up  over 
the  crest  of  the  continent,  the  locaters  were 
dropping  down  the  Pacific  slope,  with  the  prowl 
ing  pathfinders  peeping  over  into  the  Utah  Val 
ley.  Before  the  road  reached  Salt  Lake  City 
the  builders  were  made  aware  of  the  presence, 
power,  and  opposition  of  Brigham  Young.  The 
head  of  the  church  had  decreed  that  the  road 
must  pass  to  the  south  of  the  lake,  and  as  the 
Central  Pacific  had  surveyed  a  line  that  way, 
and  General  Dodge  had  declared  in  favor  of  the 
northern  route,  the  Mormons  threw  their  power 
ful  influence  to  the  Southern.  The  Union  Pa 
cific  was  boycotted,  and  all  good  Mormons 
forbidden  to  aid  the  road  in  any  way. 

Here,  again,  the  chief  engineer  brought  Brad 
ford's  diplomacy  to  bear  on  Brigham  and  won 
him  over. 

While  the  Union  Pacific  was  building  west, 
the  Central  Pacific  had  been  building  east,  and 


20  THE   LAST  SPIKE 

here,  in  the  Salt  Lake  basin,  the  advance  forces 
of  the  two  companies  met.  The  United  States 
Congress  directed  that  the  rails  should  be  joined 
wherever  the  two  came  together,  but  the  bonus 
($32,000  to  the  mile)  left  a  good  margin  to  the 
builders  in  the  valley,  so,  instead  of  joining  the 
rails,  the  pathfinders  only  said  "  Howdy  do !  " 
and  then  "  Good-bye  !  "  and  kept  going.  The 
graders  followed  close  upon  the  heels  of  the 
engineers,  so  that  by  the  time  the  track-layers 
met  the  two  grades  paralleled  each  other  for  a 
distance  of  two  hundred  miles.  When  the  rails 
actually  met,  the  Government  compelled  the  two 
roads  to  couple  up.  It  had  been  a  friendly 
contest  that  left  no  bad  blood.  Indeed  they 
were  all  willing  to  stop,  for  the  iron  trail  was 
open  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific. 


THE  tenth  day  of  May,  1869,  was  the  date 
fixed  for  the  driving  of  the  last  spike  and  the 
official  opening  of  the  line.  Special  trains, 
carrying  prominent  railway  and  Government 
officials,  were  hurrying  out  from  the  East,  while 


THE   LAST  SPIKE 


up  from  the  Golden  Gate  came  another  train 
bringing  the  flower  of  'Frisco  to  witness,  and 
some  of  them  to  take  an  active  part  in,  the  cele 
bration.  The  day  was  like  twenty-nine  other 
May  days  that  month  in  the  Salt  Lake  Valley, 
fair  and  warm,  but  with  a  cool  breeze  blowing 
over  the  sagebrush.  The  dusty  army  of  trail- 
makers  had  been  resting  for  two  days,  waiting 
for  the  people  to  come  in  clean  store  clothes,  to 
make  speeches,  to  eat  and  drink,  and  drive  the 
golden  spike.  Some  Chinese  laborers  had 
opened  a  temporary  laundry  near  the  camp,  and 
were  coining  money  washing  faded  blue  overalls 
for  their  white  comrades.  Many  of  the  en 
gineers  and  foremen  had  dressed  up  that  morn 
ing,  and  a  few  had  fished  out  a  white  shirt. 
Judah  and  Strawbridge,  of  the  Central,  had  little 
chips  of  straw  hats  that  had  been  harvested  in 
the  summer  of  '65.  Here  and  there  you  saw  a 
sombrero,  the  wide  hat  of  the  cowboy,  and  the 
big,  soft,  shapeless  head  cover  of  the  Mormon, 
with  a  little  bunch  of  whiskers  on  his  chin. 
General  Dodge  came  from  his  arsenal  car,  that 
stood  on  an  improvised  spur,  in  a  bright,  new 
uniform.  Of  the  special  trains,  that  of  Governor 


22  THE   LAST  SPIKE 

Stanford  was  first  to  arrive,  with  its  straight- 
stacked  locomotive  and  Celestial  servants.  Then 
the  U.  P.  engine  panted  up,  with  its  burnished 
bands  and  balloon  stack,  that  reminded  you  of 
the  skirts  the  women  wore,  save  that  it  funnelled 
down.  When  the  ladies  began  to  jump  down, 
the  cayuses  of  the  cowboys  began  to  snort  and 
side-step,  for  they  had  seen  nothing  like  these 
tents  the  women  stood  up  in. 

Elaborate  arrangements  had  been  made  for 
transmitting  the  news  of  the  celebration  to  the 
world.  All  the  important  telegraph  offices  of 
the  country  were  connected  with  Promontory, 
Utah,  that  day,  so  that  the  blow  of  the  hammer 
driving  the  last  spike  was  communicated  by  the 
click  of  the  instrument  to  every  office  reached 
by  the  wires.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific 
the  people  were  rejoicing  and  celebrating  the 
event,  but  the  worn  heroes  who  had  dreamed  it 
over  and  over  for  five  years,  while  they  lay  in 
their  blankets  with  only  the  dry,  hard  earth  be 
neath  them,  seemed  unable  to  realize  that  the 
work  was  really  done  and  that  they  could  now 
go  home,  those  who  had  homes  to  go  to,  eat 
soft  bread,  and  sleep  between  sheets. 


THE   LAST  SPIKE  2$ 

Out  under  an  awning,  made  by  stretching  a 
blanket  between  a  couple  of  dump-carts,  Brad 
ford  lay,  reading  a  'Frisco  paper  that  had  come 
by  Governor  Stanford's  special;  but  even  that 
failed  to  hold  his  thoughts.  His  heart  was  away 
out  on  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  he  would  be 
hurrying  that  way  on  the  morrow,  the  guest  of 
the  chief  engineer.  He  had  lost  his  mother 
when  a  boy,  and  his  father  just  a  year  previous 
to  his  banishment,  but  he  had  never  lost  faith  in 
the  one  woman  he  had  loved,  and  he  had  loved 
her  all  his  life,  for  they  had  been  playmates. 
Now  all  this  fuss  about  driving  the  last  spike 
was  of  no  importance  to  him.  The  one  thing 
he  longed  for,  lived  for,  was  to  get  back  to 
"  God's  country."  He  heard  the  speeches 
by  Governor  Stanford  for  the  Central,  and 
General  Dodge  for  the  Union  Pacific ;  heard 
the  prayer  offered  up  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Todd, 
of  Pittsfield;  heard  the  General  dictate  to  the 
operator  : 

"All  ready,"  and  presently  the  operator  sang 
out  the  reply  from  the  far  East : 

"  All  ready  here  !  "  and  then  the  silver  ham 
mer  began  beating  the  golden  spike  into  the 


24  THE  LAST  SPIKE 


laurel  tie,  which  bore  a  silver  plate,  upon  which 
was  engraved  : 

"  The  Last  Tie 
Laid  in  the  Completion  of  the  Pacific 

Railroads. 
May  10,  1869." 

After  the  ceremony  there  was  handshaking 
among  the  men  and  some  kissing  among  the 
women,  as  the  two  parties  —  one  from  either 
coast  —  mingled,  and  then  the  General's  tent 
boy  came  under  the  blanket  to  call  Bradford, 
for  the  General  wanted  him  at  once.  Somehow 
Bradford's  mind  flew  back  to  his  first  meeting 
with  this  boy.  He  caught  the  boy  by  the  arms, 
held  him  off,  and  looked  at  him.  "Say,  boy," 
he  asked,  "have  I  changed  as  much  as  you 
have?  Why,  only  the  other  day  you  were  a 
freckled  beauty  in  high-water  trousers.  You're 
a  man  now,  with  whiskers  and  a  busted  lip. 
Say,  have  I  changed,  too?" 

"  Naw  ;  you  're  just  the  same,"  said  the  boy. 
"Come  now,  the  Gen's  waitin'." 

"Judge  Manning,'1  said  General  Dodge,  in 
his  strong,  clear  voice,  "you  have  been  calling 


THE  LAST  SPIKE 


us  '  heroes ' ;  now  I  want  to  introduce  the  one 
hero  of  all  this  heroic  band  —  the  man  who  has 
given  of  muscle  and  brain  all  that  a  magnificent 
and  brilliant  young  man  could  give,  and  who 
deserves  the  first  place  on  the  roll  of  honor 
among  the  great  engineers  of  our  time." 

As  the  General  pronounced  the  Judge's  name 
Bradford  involuntarily  clenched  his  fists  and 
stepped  back.  The  Judge  turned  slowly,  look 
ing  all  the  while  at  the  General,  thrilled  by  his 
eloquent  earnestness,  and  catching  something  of 
the  General's  admiration  for  so  eminent  a  man. 

"Mr.  Bradford,"  the  General  concluded, 
"  this  is  Judge  Manning,  of  Boston,  who  came 
to  our  rescue  financially  and  helped  us  to  com 
plete  this  great  work  to  which  you  have  so 
bravely  and  loyally  contributed." 

"  Mr.  Bradford,  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes.  He 's  only  Jim  Bradford  out 
here,  where  we  are  in  a  hurry,  but  he  '11  be  Mr. 
Bradford  in  Boston,  and  the  biggest  man  in 
town  when  he  gets  back." 

All  nervousness  had  gone  from  Bradford,  and 
he  looked  steadily  into  the  strong  face  before 
him. 


26  THE  LAST  SPIKE 

"  Jim  Bradford,"  the  millionnaire  repeated, 
still  holding  the  engineer's  hand. 

"Yes,  Judge  Manning,  I'm  Jim  Bradford," 
said  the  bearded  pathfinder,  trying  to  smile  and 
appear  natural. 

Suddenly  realizing  that  some  explanation  was 
due  the  General,  the  Judge  turned  and  said,  but 
without  releasing  the  engineer's  hand  :  "  Why, 
I  know  this  young  man  —  knew  his  father.  We 
were  friends  from  boyhood." 

Slowly  he  returned  his  glance  to  Bradford. 
"  Will  you  come  into  my  car  in  an  hour  from 
now  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Bradford,  nodding,  and 
with  a  quick,  simultaneous  pressure  of  hands, 
the  two  men  parted. 


VI 

BRADFORD  has  often  since  felt  grateful  to  the 
Judge  for  that  five  years'  sentence,  but  never 
has  he  forgotten  the  happy  thought  that  prompted 
the  capitalist  to  give  him  this  last  hour,  in  which 
to  get  into  a  fresh  suit  and  have  his  beard 
trimmed.  Bradford  wore  a  beard  always  now, 


THE   LAST  SPIKE  2J 

not  because  a  handsome  beard  makes  a  hand 
some  man  handsomer,  but  because  it  covered 
and  hid  the  hideous  scar  in  his  chin  that  had 
been  carved  there  by  the  Sioux  chief. 

When  the  black  porter  bowed  and  showed 
Bradford  into  Mr.  Manning's  private  car,  the 
pleasure  of  their  late  meeting  and  the  Judge's 
kindly  greeting  vanished  instantly.  It  was  all 
submerged  and  swept  away,  obliterated  and  for 
gotten  in  the  great  wave  of  inexpressible  joy 
that  now  filled  and  thrilled  his  throbbing  heart, 
for  it  was  Mary  Manning  who  came  forward  to 
greet  him.  For  nearly  an  hour  she  and  her 
father  had  been  listening  to  the  wonderful  story 
of  the  last  five  years  of  the  engineer's  life.  When 
the  wily  General  caught  the  drift  of  the  young 
lady's  mind,  and  had  been  informed  of  the  con 
ditional  engagement  of  the  young  people,  he  left 
nothing  unsaid  that  would  add  to  the  fame  and 
glory  of  the  trail-maker.  With  radiant  face  she 
heard  of  his  heroism,  tireless  industry,  and  won 
derful  engineering  feats ;  but  when  the  narrator 
came  to  tell  how  he  had  been  captured  and 
held  and  tortured  by  the  Indians,  she  slipped 
her  trembling  hand  into  the  hand  of  her  father. 


28  THE  LAST  SPIKE 

and  when  he  saw  her  hot  tears  falling  he  lifted 
the  hand  and  kissed  it,  leaving  upon  it  tears  of 
his  own. 

The  Judge  now  produced  his  cigar  case,  and 
the  General,  bowing  to  the  young  lady,  followed 
the  great  financier  to  the  other  end  of  the  car, 
leaving  Mary  alone,  for  they  had  seen  Bradford 
coming  up  the  track. 

The  dew  of  her  sweet  sorrow  was  still  upon 
her  face  when  Bradford  entered,  but  the  sun 
shine  of  her  smile  soon  dried  it  up.  The  hands 
he  reached  for  escaped  him.  They  were  about 
his  face;  then  their  great  joy  and  the  tears 
it  brought  blinded  them,  and  the  wild  beating 
of  their  happy  hearts  drowned  their  voices 
so  that  they  could  neither  see  nor  hear,  and 
neither  has  ever  been  able  to  say  just  what 
happened. 

On  the  day  following  this  happy  meeting, 
when  the  consolidated  special  was  rolling  east 
ward,  while  the  Judge  and  the  General  smoked 
in  the  latter's  car,  the  tent  boy  brought  a 
telegram  back  to  the  happy  pair.  It  was 
delivered  to  Miss  Manning,  and  she  read  it 
aloud : 


THE  LAST  SPIKE  2<) 

"  WASHINGTON,  May  11,  1869. 

"GENERAL  G.  M.  DODGE  : 

"In  common  with  millions  I  sat  yesterday  and 
heard  the  mystic  taps  of  the  telegraph  battery  an 
nounce  the  nailing  of  the  last  spike  in  the  Great 
Pacific  Road.  All  honor  to  you,  to  Durant,  to 
Jack  and  Dan  Casement,  to  Reed  and  the  thousands 
of  brave  followers  who  have  wrought  out  this 
glorious  problem,  spite  of  changes,  storms,  and 
even  doubts  of  the  incredulous,  and  all  the  obstacles 
you  have  now  happily  surmounted  ! 

"  W.  T.  SHERMAN, 

"  General" 

"  Well !  "  she  exclaimed,  letting  her  hands  and 
the  telegram  fall  in  her  lap,  "  he  does  n't  even 
mention  my  hero." 

"  Oh,  yes,  he  does,  my  dear,"  said  Bradford, 
laughing.  "  I  'm  one  of  the  '  thousands  of  brave 
followers.'  " 

Then  they  both  laughed  and  forgot  it,  for  they 
were  too  happy  to  bother  with  trifles. 


tl)t  mile  of 


THE   BELLE   OF   ATHABASCA 


A  THABASCA  BELLE  did  not  burst  upon 
-*j^>  Smith  the  Silent  all  at  once,  like  a  rain 
bow  or  a  sunrise  in  the  desert.  He  would  never 
say  she  had  been  thrust  upon  him.  She  was 
acquired,  he  said,  in  an  unguarded  moment. 

The  trouble  began  when  Smith  was  pathfind- 
ing  on  the  upper  Athabasca  for  the  new  trans 
continental.  Among  his  other  assets  Smith  had 
two  camp  kettles.  One  was  marked  with  the 
three  initials  of  the  new  line,  which,  at  that  time, 
existed  only  on  writing  material,  empty  pots,  and 
equally  empty  parliamentary  perorations.  The 
other  was  not  marked  at  all.  It  was  the  per 
sonal  property  of  Jaquis,  who  cooked  for  Smith 
and  his  outfit.  The  Belle  was  a  fine  looking 
Cree  —  tall,  strong,  magnifiquf.  Jaquis  warmed 
to  her  from  the  start,  but  the  Belle  was  not  for 
Jaquis,  himself  a  Siwash  three  to  one.  She 
scarcely  looked  at  him,  and  answered  him  only 
3 


34  THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA 

when  he  asked  if  she  'd  encore  the  pork  and 
beans.  But  she  looked  at  Smith.  She  would 
sit  by  the  hour,  her  elbow  on  her  knee  and  her 
chin  in  her  hand,  watching  him  wistfully,  while 
he  drew  crazy,  crooked  lines  or  pictured  moun 
tains  with  rivers  running  between  them  —  all  of 
which,  from  the  Belle's  point  of  view,  was  not 
only  a  waste  of  time,  but  had  absolutely  nothing 
to  do  with  the  case. 

The  Belle  and  her  brown  mother  came  to  the 
camp  of  the  Silent  first  one  glorious  morn  in 
the  moon  of  August,  with  a  basket  of  wild  berries 
and  a  pair  of  beaded  moccasins.  Smith  bought 
both  —  the  berries  for  Jaquis,  out  of  which  he 
built  strange  pies,  and  the  moccasins  for  himself. 
He  called  them  his  night  slippers,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  there  was  no  night  on  the  Atha 
basca  at  that  time.  The  day  was  divided  into 
three  shifts,  one  long  and  two  short  ones,  —  day 
light,  dusk,  and  dawn.  So  it  was  daylight  when 
the  Belle  first  fixed  her  large  dark  eyes  upon 
the  strong,  handsome  face  of  Smith  the  Silent,  as 
he  sat  on  his  camp  stool,  bent  above  a  map  he 
was  making.  Belle's  mother,  being  old  in  years 
and  unafraid,  came  close,  looked  at  the  picture 


THE  BELLE    OF  ATHABASCA  35 

for  a  moment,  and  exclaimed :  "  Him  Jasper 
Lake,"  pointing  up  the  Athabasca. 

"  You  know  Jasper  Lake  ?  "  asked  the  en 
gineer,  glancing  up  for  the  first  time. 

"  Oui"  said  the  old  woman  (Belle's  step 
father  was  half  French)  ;  "know  'im  ver'  well." 

Smith  looked  her  over  as  a  matter  of  habit, 
for  he  allowed  no  man  or  woman  to  get  by  him 
with  the  least  bit  of  information  concerning  the 
country  through  which  his  imaginary  line  lay. 
Then  he  glanced  at  Belle  for  fully  five  seconds, 
then  back  to  his  blue  print.  Nobody  but  a  he- 
nun,  or  a  man  already  wedded  to  the  woods, 
could  do  that,  but  to  the  credit  of  the  camp  it 
will  go  down  that  the  chief  was  the  only  man  in 
the  outfit  who  failed  to  feel  her  presence.  As 
for  Jaquis,  the  alloyed  Siwash,  he  carried  the 
scar  of  that  first  meeting  for  six  months,  and 
may,  for  aught  I  know,  take  it  with  him  to  his 
little  swinging  grave.  Even  Smith  remembers 
to  this  day  how  she  looked,  standing  there  on 
her  two  trim  ankles,  that  disappeared  into  her 
hand-turned  sandals  or  faded  in  the  flute  and 
fringe  of  her  fawnskin  skirt.  Her  full  bosom 
rose  and  fell,  and  you  could  count  the  beat  of 


36  THE   BELLE    OF  ATHABASCA 

her  wild  heart  in  the  throb  of  her  throat.  Her 
cheeks  showed  a  faint  flush  of  red  through  the 
dark  olive,—  the  flush  of  health  and  youth,  — 
her  nostrils  dilated,  like  those  of  an  Ontario  high- 
jumper,  as  she  drank  life  from  the  dewy  morn, 
while  her  eye  danced  with  the  joy  of  being  alive. 
Jaquis  sized  and  summed  her  up  in  the  one  word 
"  magnific."  But  in  that  moment,  when  she 
caught  the  keen,  piercing  eye  of  the  engineer, 
the  Belle  had  a  stroke  that  comes  sooner  or  later 
to  all  these  wild  creatures  of  the  wilderness,  but 
comes  to  most  people  but  once  in  a  lifetime. 
She  never  forgot  the  gleam  of  that  one  glance, 
though  the  Silent  one  was  innocent  enough. 

It  was  during  the  days  that  followed,  when 
she  sat  and  watched  him  at  his  work,  or  followed 
him  for  hours  in  the  mountain  fastnesses,  that 
the  Belle  of  Athabasca  lost  her  heart. 

When  he  came  upon  a  bit  of  wild  scenery  and 
stopped  to  photograph  it,  the  Belle  stood  back 
of  him,  watching  his  every  movement,  and  when 
he  passed  on  she  followed,  keeping  always  out 
of  sight. 

The  Belle's  mother  haunted  him.  As  often 
as  he  broke  camp  and  climbed  a  little  higher 


THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  37 

upstream,  the  brown  mother  moved  also,  and 
with  her  the  Belle. 

"What  does  this  old  woman  want?"  asked 
the  engineer  of  Jaquis  one  evening  when,  re 
turning  to  his  tent,  he  found  the  fat  Cree  and 
her  daughter  camping  on  his  trail. 

"  She  want  that  pot,"  said  Jaquis. 

"Then  for  the  love  of  We-sec-e-gea,  god  of 
the  Crees,"  said  Smith,  "give  it  into  her  hands 
and  bid  her  begone." 

Jaquis  did  as  directed,  and  the  old  Indian 
went  away,  but  she  left  the  girl. 

The  next  day  Smith  started  on  a  reconnois- 
sance  that  would  occupy  three  or  four  days.  As 
he  never  knew  himself  when  he  would  return,  he 
never  took  the  trouble  to  inform  Jaquis,  the  tail 
of  the  family. 

After  breakfast  the  Belle  went  over  to  her 
mother's.  She  would  have  lunched  with  her 
mother  from  the  much  coveted  kettle,  but  the 
Belle's  mother  told  her  that  she  should  return 
to  the  camp  of  the  white  man,  who  was  now  her 
lord  and  master.  So  the  Belle  went  back  and 
lunched  with  Jaquis,  who  otherwise  must  have 
lunched  alone.  Jaquis  tried  to  keep  her,  and 


38  THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA 

wooed  her  in  his  half-wild  way ;  but  to  her 
sensitive  soul  he  was  repulsive.  Moreover,  she 
felt  that  in  some  mysterious  manner  her  mother 
had  transferred  her,  together  with  her  love  and 
allegiance,  to  Smith  the  Silent,  and  to  him  she 
must  be  true.  Therefore  she  returned  to  the 
Cree  camp. 

As  the  sinking  sun  neared  the  crest  of  the 
Rockies,  the  young  Indian  walked  back  to  the 
engineer's  camp.  As  she  strode  along  the  new 
trail  she  plucked  wildflovvers  by  the  wayside 
and  gathered  leaves  and  wove  them  into  vari 
colored  wreaths,  swinging  along  with  the  easy 
grace  of  a  wild  deer. 

Now  some  women  would  say  she  had  not 
much  to  make  her  happy,  but  she  was  happy 
nevertheless.  She  loved  a  man  —  to  her  the 
noblest,  most  god-like  creature  of  his  kind,  —  and 
she  was  happy  in  abandoning  herself  to  him. 
She  had  lived  in  this  love  so  long,  had  felt  and 
seen  it  grow  from  nothing  to  something  formi 
dable,  then  to  something  fine,  until  now  it  filled  her 
and  thrilled  her ;  it  overspread  everything,  out 
ran  her  thoughts,  brought  the  far-off  mountains 
nearer,  shortened  the  trail  between  her  camp 


THE  BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  39 

and  his,  gave  a  new  glow  to  the  sunset,  a  new 
glory  to  the  dawn  and  a  fresher  fragrance  to  the 
wildflowers ;  the  leaves  whispered  to  her,  the 
birds  came  nearer  and  sang  sweeter ;  in  short  it 
was  her  life  —  the  sunshine  of  her  soul.  And 
that's  the  way  a  wild  woman  loves. 

And  she  was  to  see  him  soon.  Perhaps  he 
would  speak  to  her,  or  smile  on  her.  If  only  he 
gave  a  passing  glance  she  would  be  glad  and 
content  to  know  that  he  was  near.  Alas,  he 
came  not  at  all  She  watched  with  the  stars 
through  the  short  night,  slept  at  dawn,  and  woke 
to  find  Jaquis  preparing  the  morning  meal.  She 
thought  to  question  Jaquis,  but  her  interest  in 
the  engineer,  and  the  growing  conviction  that 
his  own  star  sank  as  his  master's  rose,  rendered 
him  unsafe  as  a  companion  to  a  young  bride 
whose  husband  was  in  the  hills  and  unconscious 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  wedded  to  anything  save 
the  wilderness  and  his  work. 

Jaquis  not  only  refused  to  tell  her  where  the 
engineer  was  operating,  but  promised  to  strangle 
her  if  she  mentioned  his  master's  name  again. 

At  last  the  long  day  died,  the  sunset  was  less 
golden,  and  the  stars  sang  sadder  than  they  sang 


40  THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA 

the  day  before.  She  watched  the  west,  into 
which  he  had  gone  and  out  of  which  she  hoped 
he  might  return  to  her.  Another  round  of  dusk 
and  dawn  and  there  came  another  day,  with  its 
hours  that  hung  like  ages.  When  she  sighed 
her  mother  scolded  and  Jaquis  swore.  When  at 
last  night  came  to  curtain  the  hills,  she  stole  out 
under  the  stars  and  walked  and  walked  until  the 
next  day  dawned.  A  lone  wolf  howled  to  his 
kith,  but  they  were  not  hungry  and  refused  to 
answer  his  call.  Often,  in  the  dark,  she  fancied 
she  heard  faint,  feline  footsteps  behind  her. 
Once  a  big  black  bear  blocked  her  trail,  staring 
at  her  with  lifted  muzzle  wet  with  dew  and 
stained  with  berry  juice.  She  did  not  faint  nor 
scream  nor  stay  her  steps,  but  strode  on.  Now 
nearer  and  nearer  came  the  muffled  footsteps 
behind  her.  The  black  bear  backed  from  the 
trail  and  kept  backing,  pivoting  slowly,  like  a 
locomotive  on  a  turntable,  and  as  she  passed 
on,  stood  staring  after  her,  his  small  eyes  blink 
ing  in  babylike  bewilderment.  And  so  through 
the  dusk  and  dark  and  dawn  this  love-mad 
maiden  walked  the  wilderness,  innocent  of  arms, 
and  with  no  one  near  to  protect  her  save  the 


THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  41 

little  barefooted  bowman  whom  the  white  man 
calls  the  God  of  Love. 

Meanwhile  away  to  the  west,  high  in  the  hills, 
where  the  Findlay  flowing  into  the  Pine  makes 
the  Peace,  then  cutting  through  the  crest  of  the 
continent  makes  a  path  for  the  Peace,  Smith 
and  his  little  army,  isolated,  remote,  with  no 
cable  connecting  them  with  the  great  cities  ot 
civilization,  out  of  touch  with  the  telegraph,  away 
from  the  war  correspondent,  with  only  the  music 
of  God's  rills  for  a  regimental  band,  were  bat 
tling  bravely  in  a  war  that  can  end  only  with  the 
conquest  of  a  wilderness.  Ah,  these  be  the 
great  generals  —  these  unheralded  heroes  who, 
while  the  smoke  of  slaughter  smudges  the  skies 
and  shadows  the  sun,  wage  a  war  in  which  they 
kill  only  time  and  space,  and  in  the  end,  without 
despoiling  the  rest  of  the  world,  win  homes  for 
the  homeless.  These  are  the  heroes  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race. 

Finding  no  trace  of  the  trail-makers,  the  Belle 
faced  the  rising  sun  and  sought  the  camp  of  the 
Crees. 

The  mysterious  shadow  with  the  muffled  tread, 


42  THE   BELLE    OF  ATHABASCA 

that  had  followed  her  from  the  engineer's  camp, 
shrank  back  into  the  bush  as  she  passed  down 
the  trail.  That  was  Jaquis.  He  watched  her 
as  she  strode  by  him,  uncertain  as  to  whether  he 
loved  or  hated  her,  for  well  he  knew  why  she 
walked  the  wilderness  all  night  alone.  Now 
the  Gitche  in  his  unhappy  heart  made  him  long 
to  lift  her  in  his  arms  and  carry  her  to  camp, 
and  then  the  bad  god,  Mitche,  would  assert 
himself  and  say  to  the  savage  that  was  in  him, 
"  Go,  kill  her.  She  despises  her  race  and  flings 
herself  at  the  white  man's  feet."  And  so,  im 
pelled  by  passion  and  stayed  by  love,  he  followed 
her.  The  white  man  within  him  made  him 
ashamed  of  his  skulking,  and  the  Indian  that  was 
in  him  guided  him  around  her  and  home  by  a 
shorter  trail. 

That  night  the  engineers  returned,  and  when 
Smith  saw  the  Cree  in  the  camp  he  jumped  on 
Jaquis  furiously. 

"  Why  do  you  keep  this  woman  here  ? "  he 
demanded. 

"I  —  keep?  Me?"  quoth  Jaquis,  blinking 
as  bewildered  as  the  black  bear  had  blinked  at 
the  Belle. 


THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  43 

"  Who  but  you?  —  you  heathen  !  "  hissed  the 
engineer. 

Now  Jaquis,  calling  up  the  ghosts  of  his  dead 
sires,  asserted  that  it  was  the  engineer  himself 
who  was  "keeping"  the  Cree.  "You  bought 
her  —  she  's  yours,"  said  Jaquis,  in  the  presence 
of  the  company. 

"You  ill-bred-  -"  Smith  choked,  and 
reached  for  a  tent  prop.  The  next  moment  his 
hand  was  at  the  Indian's  throat.  With  a  quick 
twist  of  his  collar  band  he  shut  off  the  Siwash's 
wind,  choking  him  to  the  earth. 

"  W7hat  do  you  mean?"  he  demanded,  and 
Jaquis,  coughing,  put  up  his  hands.  "  I  meant 
no  lie,"  said  he.  "Did  you  not  give  to  her 
mother  the  camp  kettle?  She  has  it,  marked 
G.  T.  P." 

"And  what  of  that?" 

"  Voila"  said  Jaquis,  "because  of  that  she 
gave  to  you  the  Belle  of  Athabasca." 

Smith  dropped  his  stick,  releasing  the  Indian. 

"  I  did  not  mean  she  is  sold  to  you.  She  is 
trade  —  trade  for  the  empty  pot,  the  Belle  —  the 
beautiful.  From  yesterday  to  this  day  she  fol 
lowed  you,  far,  very  far,  to  the  foot  of  the  Grande 


44  THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA 

Cote,  and  nothing  harmed  her.  The  mountain 
lion  looked  on  her  in  terror,  the  timber  wolf  took 
to  the  hills,  the  black  bear  backed  from  the  trail 
and  let  her  pass  in  peace,"  said  Jaquis,  with  glow 
ing  enthusiasm.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
talked  of  her,  save  to  the  stars  and  to  We-sec- 
e-gea,  and  he  glowed  and  grew  eloquent  in  praise 
of  her. 

"  You  take  her,"  said  Smith,  with  one  finger 
levelled  at  the  head  of  the  cook,  "  to  the  camp 
of  the  Crees.  Say  to  her  mother  that  your 
master  is  much  obliged  for  the  beautiful  gift,  but 
he  's  too  busy  to  get  married  and  too  poor  to 
support  a  wife." 

From  the  uttermost  rim  of  the  ring  of  light 
that  came  from  the  flickering  fire  la  Belle  the 
beautiful  heard  and  saw  all  that  had  passed  be 
tween  the  two  men.  She  did  not  throw  herself 
at  the  feet  of  the  white  man.  Being  a  wild 
woman  she  did  not  weep  nor  cry  out  with  the 
pain  of  his  words,  that  cut  like  cold  steel  into  her 
heart.  She  leaned  against  an  aspen  tree,  strok 
ing  her  throat  with  her  left  hand,  swallowing  with 
difficulty.  Slowly  from  her  girdle  she  drew  a 


THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  45 

tiny  hunting-knife,  her  one  weapon,  and  toyed 
with  it.  She  put  the  hilt  to  the  tree,  the  point 
to  her  bare  breast,  and  breathed  a  prayer  to  We- 
sec-e-gea,  god  of  the  Crees.  She  had  only  to 
throw  the  weight  of  her  beautiful  body  on  the 
blade,  sink  without  a  moan  to  the  moss,  and  pass, 
leaving  the  camp  undisturbed. 

Smith  marked  the  faintest  hint  of  sarcasm  in 
the  half  smile  of  the  Indian  as  he  turned  away. 

"  Come  here,"  he  cried.  Jaquis  approached 
cautiously.  "  Now,  you  skulking  son  of  a  Si- 
wash,  this  is  to  be  skin  for  skin.  If  any  harm 
comes  to  that  young  Cree  you  go  to  your  little 
hammock  in  the  hemlocks  —  you  understand  ?  " 

"  Out)  Monsieur"  said  Jaquis. 

"Very  well,  then  ;  remember — skin  for  skin." 

Now  to  the  Belle,  watching  from  her  shelter 
in  the  darkness,  there  was  something  splendid  in 
this.  To  hear  her  praises  sung  by  the  Siwash, 
then  to  have  the  fair  god,  who  had  heard  that 
story,  champion  her,  to  take  the  place  of  her  pro 
tector,  was  all  new  to  her.  "  Ah,  good  God," 
she  sighed ;  "  it  is  better,  a  thousand  times 
better,  to  love  and  lose  him  than  to  waste  one's 
life,  never  knowing  this  sweet  agony." 


46  THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA 

She  felt  in  a  vague  way  that  she  was  soaring 
above  the  world  and  its  woes.  At  times,  in  the 
wild  tumult  of  her  tempestuous  soul,  she  seemed 
to  be  borne  beyond  it  all,  through  beautiful 
worlds.  Love,  for  her,  had  taken  on  great  white 
wings,  and  as  he  wafted  her  out  of  the  wilder 
ness  and  into  her  heaven,  his  talons  tore  into 
her  heart  and  hurt  like  hell,  yet  she  could  re 
joice  because  of  the  exquisite  pleasure  that  sur 
passed  the  pain. 

"Sweet  We-sec-e-gea,"  she  sighed,  "good 
god  of  my  dead,  I  thank  thee  for  the  gift  of  this 
great  love  that  stays  the  steel  when  my  aching 
heart  yearns  for  it.  I  shall  not  destroy  myself 
and  distress  him,  disturbing  him  in  his  great 
work,  whatever  it  is ;  but  live  —  live  and  love 
him,  even  though  he  send  me  away." 

She  kissed  the  burnished  blade  and  returned 
it  to  her  belt. 

When  Jaquis,  circling  the  camp,  failed  to  find 
her,  he  guessed  that  she  was  gone,  and  hurried 
after  her  along  the  dim,  starlit  trail.  When  he 
had  overtaken  her,  they  walked  on  together. 
Jaquis  tried  now  to  renew  his  acquaintance  with 
the  handsome  Cree  and  to  make  love  to  her. 


THE   BELLE   OF  ATHABASCA  47 

She  heard  him  in  absolute  silence.  Finally,  as 
they  were  nearing  the  Cree  camp,  he  taunted 
her  with  having  been  rejected  by  the  white  man. 

"  And  my  shame  is  yours,"  said  she  softly. 
"  I  love  him  ;  he  sends  me  away.  You  love  me  ; 
I  send  you  from  me  —  it  is  the  same." 

Jaquis,  quieted  by  this  simple  statement,  said 
good-night  and  returned  to  the  tents,  where  the 
pathfinders  were  sleeping  peacefully  under  the 
stars. 

And  over  in  the  Cree  camp  the  Belle  of  Atha 
basca,  upon  her  bed  of  boughs,  slept  the  sleep 
of  the  innocent,  dreaming  sweet  dreams  of  her 
fair  god,  and  through  them  ran  a  low,  weird 
song  of  love,  and  in  her  dream  Love  came  down 
like  a  beautiful  bird  and  bore  her  out  of  this  life 
and  its  littleness,  and  though  his  talons  tore 
at  her  heart  and  hurt,  yet  was  she  happy  be 
cause  of  the  exquisite  pleasure  that  surpassed 
all  pain. 


in  tlje 


PATHFINDING   IN  THE   NORTHWEST 


IT  was  summer  when  my  friend  Smith,  whose 
real  name  is  Jones,  heard  that  the  new 
transcontinental  line  would  build  by  the  way  of 
Peace  River  Pass  to  the  Pacific.  He  immedi 
ately  applied,  counting  something,  no  doubt,  on 
his  ten  years  of  field  work  in  Washington,  Ore 
gon,  and  other  western  states,  and  five  years 
pathfinding  in  Canada. 

The  summer  died ;  the  hills  and  rills  and  the 
rivers  slept,  but  while  they  slept  word  came  to 
my  friend  Smith  the  Silent,  and  he  hurriedly 
packed  his  sleds  and  set  out. 

His  orders  were,  like  the  orders  of  Admiral 
Dewey,  to  do  certain  things  —  not  merely  to 
try.  He  was  to  go  out  into  the  northern  night 
called  winter,  feel  his  way  up  the  Athabasca, 
over  the  Smoky,  follow  the  Peace  River,  and 
find  the  pass  through  the  Rockies. 

If  the  simple  story  of  that  winter  campaign 
could  be  written  out  it  would  be  finer  than 


52          PATHFINDING  IN   THE   NORTHWEST 

fiction.  But  it  will  never  be.  Only  Smith  the 
Silent  knows,  and  he  won't  tell. 

Sometimes,  over  the  pipe,  he  forgets  and 
gives  me  glimpses  into  the  winter  camp,  with 
the  sun  going  out  like  a  candle  :  the  hastily 
made  camp  with  the  half-breed  spotting  the  dry 
wood  against  the  coming  moment  when  night 
would  drop  over  the  forest  like  a  curtain  over  a 
stage  ;  the  "  lean-to  "  between  the  burning  logs, 
where  he  dozes  or  dreams,  barely  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  flames  ;  the  silence  all  about,  Jaquis 
pulling  at  his  pipe,  and  the  huskies  sleeping  in 
the  snow  like  German  babies  under  the  eider 
down.  Sometimes,  out  of  the  love  of  bygone 
days,  he  tells  of  long  toilsome  journeys  with  the 
sun  hiding  behind  clouds  out  of  which  an  ava 
lanche  of  snow  falls,  with  nothing  but  the  needle 
to  tell  where  he  hides ;  of  hungry  dogs  and  half 
starved  horses,  and  lakes  and  rivers  fifty  and  a 
hundred  miles  out  of  the  way. 

Once,  he  told  me,  he  sent  an  engineer  over 
a  low  range  to  spy  out  a  pass.  By  the  maps 
and  other  data  they  figured  that  he  would  be  gone 
three  days,  but  a  week  went  by  and  no  word 
from  the  pathfinder.  Ten  days  and  no  news. 


PATHFINDING  IN    THE   NORTHWEST 


53 


On  the  thirteenth  day,  when  Smith  was  pre 
paring  to  go  in  search  of  the  wanderer,  the  run 
ning  gear  of  the  man  and  the  framework  of  the 
dogs  came  into  camp.  He  was  able  to  smile 
and  say  to  Smith  that  he  had  been  ten  days 
without  food,  save  a  little  tea.  For  the  dogs  he 
had  had  nothing. 

A  few  days  rest  and  they  were  on  the  trail 
again,  or  on  the  "  go "  rather ;  and  you  might 
know  that  disciple  of  Smith  the  Silent  six 
months  or  six  years  before  he  would,  unless  you 
worked  him,  refer  to  that  ten  days'  fast.  They 
think  no  more  of  that  than  a  Jap  does  of  dying. 
It 's  all  in  the  day's  work. 

Suddenly,  Smith  said,  the  sun  swung  north, 
the  days  grew  longer.  The  sun  grew  hot  and  the 
snow  melted  on  the  south  hills  ;  the  hushed  rivers, 
rending  their  icy  bonds,  went  roaring  down  to 
the  Lakes  and  out  towards  the  Arctic  Ocean. 
And  lo,  suddenly,  like  the  falling  of  an  Arctic 
night,  the  momentary  spring  passed  and  it  was 
summer  time. 

Then  it  was  that  Smith  came  into  Edmonton 
lo  make  his  first  report,  and  here  we  met  for  the 
first  time  for  many  snows. 


54          PATHFINDING   IN   THE   NORTHWEST 

Joyously,  as  a  boy  kicks  the  cover  off  on  cir 
cus  morning,  this  Northland  flings  aside  her 
winter  wraps  and  stands  forth  in  her  glorious 
garb  of  summer.  The  brooklets  murmur,  the 
rivers  sing,  and  by  their  banks  and  along  the 
lakes  waterfowl  frolic,  and  overhead  glad  birds, 
that  seem  to  have  dropped  from  the  sky,  sing 
joyfully  the  almost  endless  song  of  summer.  At 
the  end  of  the  long  day,  when  the  sun,  as  if  to 
make  up  for  its  absence,  lingers,  loath  to  leave 
us  in  the  twilight,  beneath  their  wings  the  song 
birds  hide  their  heads,  then  wake  and  sing,  for 
the  sun  is  swinging  up  over  the  horizon  where 
the  pink  sky,  for  an  hour,  has  shown  the  narrow 
door  through  which  the  day  is  dawning. 

The  dogs  and  sleds  have  been  left  behind  and 
now,  with  Jaquis  the  half-breed  "  boy  "  leading, 
followed  closely  by  Smith  the  Silent,  we  go 
deeper  and  deeper  each  day  into  the  pathless 
wilderness. 

To  be  sure  it  is  not  all  bush,  all  forest.  At 
times  we  cross  wide  reaches  of  wild  prairie  lands. 
Sometimes  great  lakes  lie  immediately  in  front  of 
us,  compelling  us  to  change  our  course.  Now 
we  come  to  a  wide  river  and  raft  our  outfit  over, 


PATHFINDING  IN   THE  NORTHWEST         55 

swimming  our  horses.  Weeks  go  by  and  we 
begin  to  get  glimpses  of  the  Rockies  rising  above 
the  forest,  and  we  push  on.  The  streams  be 
come  narrower  as  we  ascend,  but  swifter  and 
more  dangerous. 

We  do  not  travel  constantly  now,  as  we  have 
been  doing.  Sometimes  we  keep  our  camp  for 
two  or  three  days.  The  climbing  is  hard,  for 
Smith  must  get  to  the  top  of  every  peak  in  sight, 
and  so  I  find  it  "good  hunting"  about  the 
camp. 

Jaquis  is  a  fairly  good  cook,  and  what  he  lacks 
we  make  up  with  good  appetites,  for  we  live  al 
most  constantly  out  under  the  sun  and  stars. 

Pathfinders  always  lay  up  on  Sunday,  and 
sometimes,  the  day  being  long,  Smith  steals  out 
to  the  river  and  comes  back  with  a  mountain 
trout  as  long  as  a  yardstick. 

The  scenery  is  beyond  description.  Now  we 
pass  over  the  shoulder  of  a  mountain  with  a  river 
a  thousand  feet  below.  Sometimes  we  trail  for 
hours  along  the  shore  of  a  limpid  lake  that  seems 
to  run  away  to  the  foot  of  the  Rockies. 

Far  away  we  get  glimpses  of  the  crest  of 
the  continent,  where  the  Peace  River  gashes  it 


56          PATHFINDING   IN   THE   NORTHWEST 

as  if  it  had  been  cleft  by  the  sword  of  the 
Almighty  ;  and  near  the  Rockies,  on  either  bank, 
grand  battlements  rise  that  seem  to  guard  the 
pass  as  the  Sultan's  fortresses  frown  down  on  the 
Dardanelles. 

Now  we  follow  a  narrow  trail  that  was  not  a 
trail  until  we  passed.  A  careless  pack-horse, 
carrying  our  blankets,  slips  from  the  path  and 
goes  rolling  and  tumbling  down  the  mountain 
side.  A  thousand  feet  below  lies  an  arm  of  the 
Athabasca.  Down,  down,  and  over  and  over 
the  pack-horse  goes,  and  finally  fetches  up  on  a 
ledge  five  hundred  feet  below  the  trail.  "By 
damn,"  says  Jaquis,  "dere  is  won  bronco  bust, 
eh?" 

Smith  and  Jaquis  go  down  to  cut  the  cinches 
and  save  the  pack,  and  lo,  up  jumps  our  cayuse, 
and  when  he  is  repacked  he  takes  the  trail  as 
good  as  new.  The  pack  and  the  low  bush  save 
his  life. 

In  any  other  country,  to  other  men,  this  would 
be  exciting,  but  it 's  all  in  the  day's  work  with 
Smith  and  Jaquis. 

The  pack-pony  that  had  been  down  the  moun 
tain  is  put  in  the  lead  now  —  that  is,  in  the  lead 


PATH  FIN  DING  IN   THE   NORTHWEST         57 

of  the  pack  animals ;  for  he  has  learned  his  les 
son,  he  will  be  careful.  And  yet  we  are  to  have 
other  experiences  along  this  same  river. 

Suddenly,  down  a  side  canon,  a  mountain 
stream  rushes,  plunging  into  the  Athabasca,  joy 
fully,  like  a  sea-bather  into  the  surf.  Jaquis  calls 
this  side-stream  "  the  mill-tail  o'  hell."  Smith 
the  Silent  prepares  to  cross.  It 's  all  very  simple. 
All  you  need  is  a  stout  pole,  a  steady  nerve,  and 
an  utter  disregard  for  the  hereafter. 

When  Smith  is  safe  on  the  other  shore  we 
drive  the  horses  into  the  stream.  They  shudder 
and  shrink  from  the  ice-cold  water,  but  Jaquis 
and  I  urge  them,  and  in  they  plunge.  My, 
what  a  struggle  !  Their  wet  feet  on  the  slippery 
boulders  in  the  bottom  of  the  stream,  the  swift 
current  constantly  tripping  them  —  it  was  thrill 
ing  to  see  and  must  have  been  agony  for  the 
animals. 

Midway,  where  the  current  was  strongest,  a 
mouse-colored  cayuse  carrying  a  tent  lost  his 
feet.  The  turbulent  tide  slammed  him  up  on- 
top  of  a  great  rock,  barely  hidden  beneath  the 
water,  and  he  got  to  his  feet  like  a  cat  that  has 
fallen  upon  the  edge  of  an  eave-trough.  Trem- 


58         PATHFINDING  IN   THE  NORTHWEST 

bling,  the  cayuse  called  to  Smith,  and  Smith, 
running  downstream,  called  back,  urging  the 
animal  to  leave  the  refuge  and  swim  for  it. 
The  pack-horse  perched  on  the  rock  gazes 
wistfully  at  the  shore.  The  waters,  breaking 
against  his  resting-place,  wash  up  to  his  trem 
bling  knees.  About  him  the  wild  river  roars, 
and  just  below  leaps  over  a  ten-foot  fall  into 
the  Athabasca. 

All  the  other  horses,  having  crossed  safely, 
shake  the  water  from  their  dripping  sides  and 
begin  cropping  the  tender  grass.  We  could 
have  heard  that  horse's  heart  beat  if  we  could 
have  hushed  the  river's  roar. 

Smith  called  again,  the  cayuse  turned  slightly, 
and  whether  he  leaped  deliberately  or  his  feet 
slipped  on  the  slippery  stones,  forcing  him  to 
leap,  we  could  not  say,  but  he  plunged  suddenly 
into  the  stream,  uttering  a  cry  that  echoed  up  the 
canon  and  over  the  river  like  the  cry  of  a  lost 
soul. 

The  cruel  current  caught  him,  lifted  him, 
and  plunged  him  over  the  drop,  and  he  was 
lost  instantly  in  the  froth  and  foam  of  the 
falls. 


PATHFINDING  IN   THE   NORTHWEST         59 

Far  down,  at  a  bend  of  the  Athabasca,  some 
thing  white  could  be  seen  drifting  towards  the 
shore.  That  night  Smith  the  Silent  made  an 
entry  in  his  little  red  book  marked  "Grand 
Trunk  Pacific,"  and  tented  under  the  stars. 


Cure's 


THE  CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 


"A  country  that  is  bad  or  good, 
Precisely  as  your  claim  pans  out ; 
A  land  that 's  much  misunderstood, 
Misjudged,  maligned  and  lied  about." 

\17HEN  the  pathfinders  for  the  New  National 
Highway  pushed  open  the  side  door  and 
peeped  through  to  the  Pacific  they  not  only  dis 
covered  a  short  cut  to  Yokohama,  but  opened  to 
the  world  a  new  country,  revealing  the  last 
remnant  of  the  Last  West. 

Edmonton  is  the  outfiling  point,  of  course, 
but  Little  Slave  Lake  is  the  real  gateway  to  the 
wilderness.  Here  we  were  to  make  our  first 
stop  (we  were  merely  exploring),  and  from  this 
point  our  first  portage  was  to  the  Peace  River, 
at  Chinook,  where  we  would  get  into  touch  once 
more  with  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 

Jim  Cromwell,  the  free  trader  who  was  in 
command  of  Little  Slave,  made  us  welcome,  in 
troducing  us  ensemble  to  his  friend,  a  former 


64  THE   CURE^S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

H.  B.  factor,  to  the  Yankee  who  was  looking  for 
a  timber  limit,  to  the  "  Literary  Cuss,"  as  he 
called  the  young  man  in  corduroys  and  a  wide 
white  hat,  who  was  endeavoring  to  get  past 
"tradition,"  that  has  damned  this  Dominion 
both  in  fiction  and  in  fact  for  two  hundred  years, 
and  do  something  that  had  in  it  the  real  color  of 
the  country. 

At  this  point  the  free  trader  paused  to  assemble 
the  Missourian.  This  iron-gray  individual  shook 
himself  out,  came  forward,  and  gripped  our 
hands,  one  after  another. 

The  free  trader  would  not  allow  us  to  make 
camp  that  night.  We  were  sentenced  to  sup 
and  lodge  with  him,  furnishing  our  own  bedding, 
of  course,  but  baking  his  bread. 

The  smell  of  cooking  coffee  and  the  odor  of 
frying  fish  came  to  us  from  the  kitchen,  and 
floating  over  from  somewhere  the  low,  musical, 
well  modulated  voice  of  Cromwell,  conversing 
in  Cree,  as  he  moved  about  among  his  mute 
and  apparently  inoffensive  camp  servants. 

The  day  died  hard.  The  sun  was  still  shining 
at  9  P.  M.  At  ten  it  was  twilight,  and  in  the 
dusk  we  sat  listening  to  tales  of  the  far  North, 


THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS   GIFT  65 

totally  unlike  the  tales  we  read  in  the  story 
books.  Smith  the  Silent,  who  was  in  charge  of 
our  party,  was  interested  in  the  country,  of 
course,  its  physical  condition,  its  timber,  its 
coal,  and  its  mineral  possibilities.  He  asked 
about  its  mountains  and  streams,  its  possible  and 
impossible  passes  ;  but  the  "  Literary  Cuss  "  and 
I  were  drinking  deeply  of  weird  stories  that  were 
being  told  quite  incautiously  by  the  free  trader, 
the  old  factor,  and  by  the  Missourian.  We  were 
like  children,  this  young  author  and  I,  sitting 
for  the  first  time  in  a  theatre.  The  flickering 
camp  fire  that  we  had  kindled  in  the  open  served 
as  a  footlight,  while  the  Gitch  Lamp,  still  gleam 
ing  in  the  west,  glanced  through  the  trees  and 
lit  up  the  faces  of  the  three  great  actors  who 
were  entertaining  us  without  money  and  without 
price.  The  Missourian  was  the  star.  He  had 
been  reared  in  the  lap  of  luxury,  had  run  away 
from  college  where  he  had  been  installed  by  a 
rich  uncle,  his  guardian,  and  jumped  down  to 
South  America.  He  had  ridden  with  the  Texas 
Rangers  and  with  President  Diaz's  Regulators, 
had  served  as  a  scout  on  the  plains  and  worked 
with  the  Mounted  Police,  but  was  now  "  retired." 
5 


66  THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

All  of  which  we  learned  not  from  him  directly, 
but  from  the  stories  he  told  and  from  his  bosom 
friend,  the  free  trader,  whose  guests  we  were, 
and  whose  word,  for  the  moment  at  least,  we 
respected. 

The  camp  fire  burned  down  to  a  bed  of  coals, 
the  Gitch  Lamp  went  out.  In  the  west,  now, 
there  was  only  a  glow  of  gold,  but  no  man 
moved. 

Smith  the  Pathfinder  and  our  host  the  free 
trader  bent  over  a  map.  "  But  is  n't  this  map 
correct?"  Smith  would  ask,  and  when  in  doubt 
Jim  would  call  the  Missourian.  "  No,"  said  the 
latter,  "  you  can't  float  down  that  river  because 
it  flows  the  other  way,  and  that  range  of  moun 
tains  is  two  hundred  miles  out." 

Gradually  we  became  aware  that  all  this  vast 
wilderness,  to  the  world  unknown,  was  an  open 
book  to  this  quiet  man  who  had  followed  the 
bufTalo  from  the  Rio  Grande  to  the  Athabasca 
where  he  turned,  made  a  last  stand,  and  then 
went  down. 

When  the  rest  had  retired  the  free  trader 
and  I  sat  talking  of  the  Last  West,  of  the  new 
trail  my  friends  were  blazing,  and  of  the  wonder- 


THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT  67 

fully  interesting  individual  whom  we  called  the 
Missourian. 

"  He  had  a  prospecting  pard,"  said  Jim, 
"  whom  he  idolized.  This  man,  whose  name 
was  Ramsey,  Jack  Ramsey,  went  out  in  '97 
between  the  Coast  Range  and  the  Rockies,  and 
now  this  sentimental  old  pioneer  says  he  will 
never  leave  the  Peace  River  until  he  finds 
Ramsey's  bones. 

"  You  see,"  Cromwell  continued,  "  friendship 
here  and  what  goes  for  friendship  outside  are 
vastly  different.  The  matter  of  devoting  one's 
life  to  a  friend  or  to  a  duty,  real  or  fancied,  is 
only  a  trifle  to  these  men  who  abide  in  the 
wilderness.  I  know  of  a  Chinaman  and  a  Cree 
who  lived  and  died  the  most  devoted  friends. 
You  see  the  Missourian  hovering  about  the 
last  camping-place  of  his  companion.  Behold 
the  factor!  He  has  left  the  Hudson  Bay  Com 
pany  after  thirty  years  because  he  has  lost  his 
life's  best  friend,  a  man  who  spoke  another 
language,  whose  religion  was  not  the  brand  upon 
which  the  factor  had  been  brought  up  in  Eng 
land ;  yet  they  were  friends." 

The  camp  fire  had  gone  out.     In  the  south 


68  THE   CURE'S    CHRISTMAS   GIFT 

we  saw  the  first  faint  flush  of  dawn  as  Cromwell, 
knocking  the  ashes  from  his  pipe,  advised  me  to 
go  to  bed.  "  You  get  the  old  factor  to  tell  you 
the  story  of  his  friend  the  cure",  and  of  the 
cure's  Christmas  gift,"  Cromwell  called  back, 
and  I  made  a  point  of  getting  the  story,  bit  by 
bit,  from  the  florid  factor  himself,  and  you  shall 
read  it  as  it  has  lingered  in  my  memory. 

When  the  new  cure  came  to  Chinook  on  the 
Upper  Peace  River,  he  carried  a  small  hand- 
satchel,  his  blankets,  and  a  crucifix.  His  face 
was  drawn,  his  eyes  hungry,  his  frame  wasted, 
but  his  smile  was  the  smile  of  a  man  at  peace 
with  the  world.  The  West  —  the  vast,  undis 
covered  Canadian  West  —  jarred  on  the  sensitive 
nerves  of  this  Paris-bred  priest.  And  yet,  when 
he  crossed  the  line  that  marks  what  we  are  pleased 
to  call  "civilization,"  and  had  reached  the  heart 
of  the  real  Northwest,  where  the  people  were 
unspoiled,  natural,  and  honest,  where  a  hand 
ful  of  Royal  Northwest  Mounted  Police  kept 
order  in  an  empire  that  covers  a  quarter  of  a 
continent,  he  became  deeply  interested  in  this 
new  world,  in  the  people,  in  the  imperial 
prairies,  the  mountains,  and  the  great  wide 


THE    CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT  69 

rivers  that  were  racing  down  to  the  northern 
sea. 

The  factor  at  the  Hudson's  Bay  post,  whose 
whole  life  since  he  had  left  college  in  England  had 
been  passed  on  the  Peace  River,  at  York  Fac 
tory,  and  other  far  northern  stations  over  which 
waved  the  Hudson's  Bay  banner,  warmed  to  the 
new  cure'  from  their  first  meeting,  and  the  cure 
warmed  to  him.  Each  seemed  to  find  in  the 
other  a  companion  that  neither  had  been  able  to 
find  among  the  few  friends  of  his  own  faith. 

And  so,  through  the  long  evenings  of  the 
northern  winter,  they  sat  in  the  curb's  cabin 
study  or  by  the  factor's  fire,  and  talked  of  the 
things  which  they  found  interesting,  including 
politics,  literature,  art,  and  Indians.  Despite  the 
great  gulf  that  rolled  between  the  two  creeds  in 
which  they  had  been  cradled,  they  found  that 
they  were  in  accord  three  times  in  five  —  a  fair 
average  for  men  of  strong  minds  and  inherent 
prejudices.  At  first  the  cure"  was  anxious  to 
get  at  the  real  work  of  "  civilizing  "  the  natives. 

"  Yes,"  the  factor  would  say,  blowing  the 
smoke  upward,  "  the  Indian  should  be  civilized 
—  slowly  —  the  slower  the  better." 


70  THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

The  cure  would  pretend  to  look  surprised 
as  he  relit  his  pipe.  Once  the  cure  asked 
the  factor  why  he  was  so  indifferent  to  the  wel 
fare  of  the  Crees,  who  were  the  real  producers, 
without  whose  furs  there  would  be  no  trade,  no 
post,  no  job  for  the  ruddy-faced  factor.  The 
priest  was  surprised  that  the  factor  should  ap 
pear  to  fail  to  appreciate  the  importance  of  the 
trapper. 

"  I  do,"  said  the  factor. 

"  Then  why  do  you  not  help  us  to  lift  him  to 
the  light?" 

"  I  like  him,"  was  the  laconic  reply. 

"Then  why  doivt  you  talk  to  him  of  his 
soul?" 

"  Have  n't  the  nerve,"  said  the  factor,  shak 
ing  his  head  and  blowing  more  smoke. 

The  cure  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  I  say,"  said  the  florid  factor,  facing  the  pale 
priest.  "  Did  you  see  me  decorating  the  old 
chief,  Dunraven,  yesterday?" 

"  Yes,  I  presume  you  were  giving  him  a  pour 
boire  in  advance  to  secure  the  greater  catch  of 
furs  next  season, "  said  the  priest,  with  his  usual 
sad  yet  always  pleasant  smile. 


THE    CURE'S   CHRISTMAS  GIFT  7! 

"  A  very  poor  guess  for  one  so  wise,"  said 
the  factor.  " Attendez"  he  continued.  "This 
post  used  to  be  closed  always  in  winter.  The 
tent  doors  were  tied  fast  on  the  inside,  after 
which  the  man  who  tied  them  would  crawl  out 
under  the  edge  of  the  canvas.  When  winter 
came,  the  snow,  banked  about,  held  the  tent 
tightly  down,  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  business 
was  bottled  at  this  point  until  the  springless  sum 
mer  came  to  wake  the  sleeping  world. 

"  Last  winter  was  a  hard  winter.  The  snow 
was  deep  and  game  scarce.  One  day  a  Cree 
Indian  found  himself  in  need  of  tea  and  tobacco, 
and  more  in  need  of  a  new  pair  of  trousers. 
Passing  the  main  tent  one  day,  he  was  sorely 
tempted.  Dimly,  through  the  parchment  pane, 
he  could  see  great  stacks  of  English  tweeds,  piles 
of  tobacco,  and  boxes  of  tea,  but  the  tent  was 
closed.  He  was  sorely  tried.  He  was  hungry 
—  hungry  for  a  horn  of  tea  and  a  twist  of  the 
weed,  and  cold,  too.  Ah,  bon  perc,  it  is  hard 
to  withstand  cold  and  hunger  with  only  a  canvas 
between  one  and  the  comforts  of  life !  " 

"  Out,  Monsieur!"  said  the  cure,  warmly, 
touched  by  the  pathos  of  the  tale. 


72  THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

11  The  Indian  walked  away  (we  know  that  by 
his  footprints),  but  returned  to  the  tent.  The 
hunger  and  the  cold  had  conquered.  He  took 
his  hunting-knife  and  slit  the  deerskin  window 
and  stepped  inside.  Then  he  approached  the 
pile  of  tweed  trousers  and  selected  a  large  pair, 
putting  down  from  the  bunch  of  furs  he  had  on 
his  arms  to  the  value  of  eight  skins  —  the  price 
his  father  and  grandfather  had  paid.  He  visited 
the  tobacco  pile  and  helped  himself,  leaving  four 
skins  on  the  tobacco.  When  he  had  taken  tea 
he  had  all  his  heart  desired,  and  having  still  a 
number  of  skins  left,  he  hung  them  upon  a  hook 
overhead  and  went  away. 

"  When  summer  dawned  and  a  clerk  came  to 
open  the  post,  he  saw  the  slit  in  the  window, 
and  upon  entering  the  tent  saw  the  eight  skins 
on  the  stack  of  tweeds,  the  four  skins  on  the 
tobacco,  and  the  others  on  the  chest,  and  under 
stood. 

"  Presently  he  saw  the  skins  which  the  In 
dian  had  hung  upon  the  hook,  took  them  down, 
counted  them  carefully,  appraised  them,  and 
made  an  entry  in  the  Receiving  Book,  in  which 
he  credited  *  Indian-cut-the-window,  37  skins.' 


THE   CURE'S  CHRIS7WAS  GIFT  73 

"  Yesterday  Dunraven  came  to  the  post  and 
confessed. 

"  It  was  to  reward  him  for  his  honesty  that  I 
gave  him  the  fur  coat  and  looped  the  big  brass 
baggage  check  in  his  buttonhole.  Vbifof" 

The  cure  crossed  his  legs  and  then  recrossed 
them,  tossed  his  head  from  side  to  side,  drummed 
upon  the  closed  book  which  lay  in  his  lap,  and 
showed  in  any  number  of  ways,  peculiar  to  ner 
vous  people,  his  amazement  at  the  story  and  his 
admiration  for  the  Indian. 

"  Little  things  like  that,"  said  the  factor,  fill 
ing  his  pipe,  "  make  me  timid  when  talking  to  a 
Cree  about  *  being  good.'  " 

When  summer  came,  and  with  it  the  smell 
of  flowers  and  the  music  of  running  streams, 
the  factor  and  his  friend  the  cure  used  to  take 
long  tramps  up  into  the  highlands,  but  the 
cure's  state  of  health  was  a  handicap  to  him. 
The  factor  saw  the  telltale  flush  in  the  priest's 
face  and  knew  that  the  "White  Plague"  had 
marked  him ;  yet  he  never  allowed  the  curd  to 
know  that  he  knew.  That  summer  a  little  river 
steamer  was  sent  up  from  Athabasca  Lake  by 


74  THE   CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 

the  Chief  Commissioner  who  sat  in  the  big  office 
at  Winnipeg,  and  upon  this  the  factor  and  his 
friend  took  many  an  excursion  up  and  down  the 
Peace.  The  friendship  that  had  grown  up  be 
tween  the  factor  and  the  new  cure"  formed 
the  one  slender  bridge  that  connected  the  An 
glican  and  the  Catholic  camps.  Even  the 
"  heathen  Crees "  marvelled  that  these  white 
men,  praying  to  the  same  God,  should  dwell  so 
far  apart.  Wing  You,  who  had  wandered  over 
from  Ramsay's  Camp  on  the  Pine  River,  ex 
plained  it  all  to  Dunraven  :  "  Flenchman  and 
Englishman,"  said  Wing.  "  No  ketchem  same 
Glod.  You — Clee,"  continued  the  wise  Ori 
ental,  "  an'  Englishman  good  fiend  —  ketchem 
same  Josh  ;  you  call  'im  We-sec-e-gea,  white  man 
call  'im  God." 

And  so,  having  the  same  God,  only  called  by 
different  names,  the  Crees  trusted  the  factor,  and 
the  factor  trusted  the  Crees.  Their  business  in 
tercourse  was  on  the  basis  of  skin  for  skin,  furs 
being  the  recognized  coin  of  the  country. 

"  Why  do  you  not  pay  them  in  cash,  take 
cash  in  turn,  and  let  them  have  something  to 
rattle?"  asked  the  cur£  one  day. 


THE   CURE">S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 


75 


"  They  won't  have  it,"  said  the  factor.  "  Silver 
Skin,  brother  to  Dunraven,  followed  a  party  of 
prospectors  out  to  Edmonton  last  fall  and  tried 
it.  He  bought  a  pair  of  gloves,  a  red  handker 
chief,  and  a  pound  of  tobacco,  and  emptied  his 
pockets  on  the  counter,  so  that  the  clerk  in  the 
shop  might  take  out  the  price  of  the  goods. 
According  to  his  own  statement,  the  Indian 
put  down  $37.80.  He  took  up  just  six-thirty- 
five.  When  the  Cree  came  back  to  God's 
country  he  showed  me  what  he  had  left  and 
asked  me  to  check  him  up.  When  I  had  told 
him  the  truth,  he  walked  to  the  edge  of  the  river 
and  sowed  the  six-thirty-five  broadcast  on  the 
broad  bosom  of  the  Peace." 

And  so,  little  by  little,  the  patient  priest  got 
the  factor's  view-point,  and  learned  the  great 
secret  of  the  centuries  of  success  that  has  at 
tended  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  in  the  far 
North. 

And  little  by  little  the  two  men,  without 
preaching,  revealed  to  the  Indians  and  the  Ori 
ental  the  mystery  of  Life  —  vegetable  life  at  first 
—  of  death  and  life  beyond.  They  showed 
them  the  miracle  of  the  wheat. 


7 6  THE   CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 

On  the  first  day  of  June  they  put  into  a  tiny 
grave  a  grain  of  wheat.  They  told  the  Blind 
Ones  that  the  berry  would  suffer  death,  decay, 
but  out  of  that  grave  would  spring  fresh  new 
flags  that  would  grow  and  blow,  fanned  by  the 
balmy  chinook  winds,  and  wet  by  the  dews  of 
heaven. 

On  the  first  day  of  September  they  harvested 
seventy-two  stalks  and  threshed  from  the  seventy- 
two  stalks  seven  thousand  two  hundred  grains 
of  wheat.  They  showed  all  this  to  the  Blind 
Ones  and  they  saw.  The  cure"  explained  that 
we,  too,  would  go  down  and  die,  but  live  again 
in  another  life,  in  a  fairer  world. 

The  Cree  accepted  it  all  in  absolute  silence, 
but  the  Oriental,  with  his  large  imagination,  ex 
claimed,  pointing  to  the  tiny  heap  of  golden 
grain  :  u  Me  ketchem  die,  me  sleep,  byme  by 
me  wake  up  in  China  —  seven  thousand  —  heap 
good."  The  cure'  was  about  to  explain  when 
the  factor  put  up  a  warning  finger.  "  Don't  cut 
it  too  fine,  father,"  said  he.  "They're  getting 
on  very  well." 

That  was  a  happy  summer  for  the  two  men, 
working  together  in  the  garden  in  the  cool  dawn 


THE   CURE'S   CHRISTMAS  GIFT 


77 


and  chatting  in  the  long  twilight  that  lingers  on 
the  Peace  until  1 1  P.  M.  Alas !  as  the  sum 
mer  waned  the  factor  saw  that  his  friend  was 
failing  fast.  He  could  walk  but  a  short  distance 
now  without  resting,  and  when  the  red  rose  of 
the  Upper  Athabasca  caught  the  first  cold  kiss 
of  Jack  Frost,  the  good  priest  took  to  his  bed. 
Wing  You,  the  accomplished  cook,  did  all  he 
could  to  tempt  him  to  eat  and  grow  strong  again. 
Dunraven  watched  from  day  to  day  for  an  oppor 
tunity  to  "  do  something  "  ;  but  in  vain.  The 
faithful  factor  made  daily  visits  to  the  bedside 
of  his  sick  friend.  As  the  priest,  who  was  still 
in  the  springtime  of  his  life,  drew  nearer  to  the 
door  of  death,  he  talked  constantly  of  his  beloved 
mother  in  far-off  France  —  a  thing  unusual  for  a 
priest,  who  is  supposed  to  burn  his  bridges  when 
he  leaves  the  world  for  the  church. 

Often  when  he  talked  thus,  the  factor  wanted 
to  ask  his  mother's  name  and  learn  where  she 
lived,  but  always  refrained. 

Late  in  the  autumn  the  factor  was  called  to 
Edmonton  for  a  general  conference  of  all  the 
factors  in  the  employ  of  the  Honorable  Com 
pany  of  gentlemen  adventurers  trading  into 


78  THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

Hudson's  Bay.  With  a  heavy  heart  he  said 
good-bye  to  the  failing  priest. 

When  he  had  come  within  fifty  miles  of 
Chinook,  on  the  return  trip,  he  was  wakened 
at  midnight  by  Dunraven,  who  had  come  out  to 
ask  him  to  hurry  up  as  the  cure  was  dying,  but 
wanted  to  speak  to  the  factor  first. 

Without  a  word  the  Englishman  got  up  and 
started  forward,  Dunraven  leading  on  the  second 
lap  of  his  "  century." 

It  was  past  midnight  again  when  the  voyageurs 
arrived  at  the  river.  There  was  a  dim  light  in 
the  curb's  cabin,  to  which  Dunraven  led  them, 
and  where  the  Catholic  bishop  and  an  Irish 
priest  were  on  watch.  "So  glad  to  see  you," 
said  the  bishop.  "  There  is  something  he  wants 
from  your  place,  but  he  will  not  tell  Wing. 
Speak  to  him,  please." 

"  Ah,  Monsieur,  I  'm  glad  that  you  are  come 
—  I  'm  weary  and  want  to  be  off." 

"The  long  traverse,  eh?" 

"  Out,  Monsieur  —  !e  grand  voyage" 

"  Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you  ?  "  asked 
the  Englishman.  The  dying  priest  made  a 
movement  as  if  hunting  for  something.  The 


THE    CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 


79 


bishop,  to  assist,  stepped  quickly  to  his  side. 
The  patient  gave  up  the  quest  of  whatever  he 
was  after  and  looked  languidly  at  the  factor. 
"  What  is  it,  my  son?  "  asked  the  bishop,  bend 
ing  low.  "  What  would  you  have  the  factor 
fetch  from  his  house  ?  " 

"Just  a  small  bit  of  cheese,"  said  the  sick 
man,  sighing  wearily. 

"  Now,  that 's  odd,"  mused  the  factor,  as  he 
went  off  on  his  strange  errand. 

When  the  Englishman  returned  to  the  cabin, 
the  bishop  and  the  priest  stepped  outside  for  a 
breath  of  fresh  air.  Upon  a  bench  on  the  narrow 
veranda  Dunraven  sat,  resting  after  his  hun 
dred-mile  tramp,  and  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
threshold  Wing  You  lay  sleeping  in  his  blankets, 
so  as  to  be  in  easy  call  if  he  were  wanted. 

When  the  two  friends  were  alone,  the  sick 
man  signalled,  and  the  factor  drew  near. 

"  I  have  a  great  favor  —  a  very  great  favor  to 
ask  of  you,"  the  priest  began,  "and  then  I'm 
off.  Ah,  mon  Dieu  !  "  he  panted.  "  It  has  been 
hard  to  hold  out.  Jesus  has  been  kind." 

"  It's  damned  tough  at  your  time,  old  fellow," 
said  the  factor,  huskily. 


8o  THE   CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 


"  It's  not  my  time,  but  His." 

"  Yes  —  well  I  shall  be  over  by  and  by." 

"And    those   faithful   dogs  —  Dunraven   and 

Wing  —  thank  them  for  — 

"  Sure  !     If  /can  pass,"  the  factor  broke  in, 

a  little  confused. 

"  Thank  them  for  me  —  for  their  kindnesses 

—  and  care.     Tell  them  to  remember  the  ser 
mon  of  the  wheat.     And  now,  good    friend," 
said    the    priest,    summoning    all    his    strength, 
"  attendez  !  " 

He  drew  a  thin,  white  hand  from  beneath  the 
cover,  carrying  a  tiny  crucifix.  "  I  want  you  to 
send  this  to  my  beloved  mother  by  registered 
post ;  send  it  yourself,  please,  so  that  she  may 
have  it  before  the  end  of  the  year.  This  will  be 
my  last  Christmas  gift  to  her.  And  the  one 
that  comes  from  her  to  me  —  that  is  for  you,  to 
keep  in  remembrance  of  me.  And  write  to  her 

—  oh,  so  gently  tell  her  —  Jesus  —  help  me,"  he 
gasped,  sitting  upright.     "  She  lives  in  Rue  — 
O  Mary,  Mother  of  Jesus,"  he  cried,  clutching 
at  the  collar  of  his  gown  ;  and  then  he  fell  back 
upon  his  bed*,  and  his  soul  swept  skyward  like  a 
toy  balloon  when  the  thin  thread  snaps. 


THE   CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT  8 1 

When  the  autumn  sun  smiled  down  on  Chi 
nook  and  the  autumn  wind  sighed  in  by  the 
door  and  out  by  the  open  window  where 
the  dead  priest  lay,  Wing  and  Dunraven  sat  on 
the  rude  bench  in  the  little  veranda,  going  over 
it  all,  each  in  his  own  tongue,  but  uttering  never 
a  word,  yet  each  to  the  other  expressing  the 
silence  of  his  soul. 

The  factor,  in  the  seclusion  of  his  bachelor 
home,  held  the  little  cross  up  and  examined  it 
critically.  "To  be  sent  to  his  mother,  she  lives 
in  Rue  —  Ah,  if  I  could  have  been  but  a  day 
sooner ;  yet  the  bishop  must  know/'  he  added, 
putting  the  crucifix  carefully  away. 

The  good  people  in  the  other  world,  beyond 
the  high  wall  that  separated  the  two  Christian 
Tribes,  had  been  having  shivers  over  the  factor 
and  his  fondness  for  the  Romans  ;  but  when  he 
volunteered  to  assist  at  the  funeral  of  his  dead 
friend,  his  people  were  shocked.  In  that  scant 
settlement  there  were  not  nearly  enough  priests 
to  perform,  properly,  the  funeral  services,  so  the 
factor  fell  in,  mingling  his  deep  full  voice  with 
the  voices  of  the  bishop  and  the  Irish  brother, 
and  grieving  even  as  they  grieved. 
6 


82  THE    CURE'S   CHRISTMAS   GIFT 

And  the  Blind  Ones,  Wing  and  Dunraven, 
came  also,  paying  a  last  tearless  tribute  to  the 
noble  dead. 

When  it  was  all  over  and  the  post  had  settled 
down  to  routine,  the  factor  found  in  his  mail, 
one  morning,  a  long  letter  from  the  Chief 
Commissioner  at  Winnipeg.  It  told  the  factor 
that  he  was  in  bad  repute,  that  the  English 
Church  bishop  had  been  grieved,  shocked,  and 
scandalized  through  seeing  the  hitherto  re 
spectable  factor  going  over  to  the  Catholics. 
Not  only  had  he  fraternized  with  them,  but 
had  actually  taken  part  in  their  religious  cere 
monies.  And  to  crown  it  all,  he  had  carried  a 
respectable  Cree  and  the  Chinese  cook  along 
with  him. 

The  factor's  placid  face  took  on  a  deep  hue, 
but  only  for  a  moment.  He  filled  his  pipe, 
poking  the  tobacco  down  hard  with  his  thumb. 
Then  he  took  the  Commissioner's  letter,  twisted 
it  up,  touched  it  to  the  tiny  fire  that  blazed  in 
the  grate,  and  lighted  his  pipe.  He  smoked  in 
silence  for  a  few  moments  and  then  said  to 
himself,  being  alone,  "  Huh  !  " 

"Ah,  that  from  the  bishop  reminds  me,"  said 


THE    CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT  83 

the  factor.  "  I  must  run  over  and  see  the  other 
one." 

When  the  factor  had  related  to  the  French- 
Canadian  bishop  what  had  passed  between  the 
dead  cure"  and  himself,  the  bishop  seemed 
greatly  annoyed.  "Why,  man,  he  had  no 
mother !  " 

"  The  devil  he  did  n't  —  I  beg  pardon  —  I  say 
he  asked  me  to  send  this  to  his  mother.  He 
started  to  tell  me  where  she  lived  and  then  the  call 
came.  It  was  the  dying  request  of  a  dear  friend. 
I  beg  of  you  tell  me  his  mother's  name,  that 
I  may  keep  my  word." 

"  It  is  impossible,  my  son.  When  he  came 
into  the  church  he  left  the  world.  He  was 
bound  by  the  law  of  the  church  to  give  up  father, 
mother,  sister,  brother  —  all." 

"  The  church  be  —  do  you  mean  to  say  —  " 

"Peace,  my  son,  you  do  not  understand," 
said  the  bishop,  lifting  the  little  cross  which  he 
had  taken  gently  from  the  factor  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  interview. 

Now  the  factor  was  not  in  the  habit  of  hav 
ing  his  requests  ignored  and  his  judgment 
questioned. 


84  THE   CURE'S  CHRISTMAS  GIFT 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  will  not  give  me  the 
name  and  address  of  the  dead  man's  mother?" 

"  It 's  absolutely  impossible.  Moreover,  I  am 
shocked  to  learn  that  our  late  brother  could  so 
far  forget  his  duty  at  the  very  door  of  death. 
No,  son,  a  thousand  times  no,"  said  the  bishop. 

"Then  give  me  the  crucifix!  "  demanded  the 
factor,  fiercely. 

"  That,  too,  is  impossible ;  that  is  the  prop 
erty  of  the  church." 

"Well,"  said  the  factor,  filling  his  pipe  again 
and  gazing  into  the  flickering  fire,  "they're 
all  about  the  same.  And  they  're  all  right,  too, 
I  presume  —  all  but  Wing  and  Dunraven  and 
me." 


t\)t 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 


A)  Waterloo  lingered  in  the  memory  of  the 
conquered  Corsican,  so  Ashtabula  was 
burned  into  the  brain  of  Bradish.  Out  of  that 
awful  wreck  he  crawled,  widowed  and  childless. 
For  a  long  time  he  did  not  realize,  for  his  head 
was  hurt  in  that  frightful  crash. 

By  the  time  he  was  fit  to  leave  the  hospital 
they  had  told  him,  little  by  little,  that  all  his 
people  had  perished. 

He  made  his  way  to  the  West,  where  he  had  a 
good  home  and  houses  to  rent  and  a  hole  in  the 
hillside  that  was  just  then  being  changed  from 
a  prospect  to  a  mine. 

The  townspeople,  who  had  heard  of  the  dis 
aster,  waited  for  him  to  speak  of  it  —  but  he 
never  did.  The  neighbors  nodded,  and  he  nod 
ded  to  them  and  passed  on  about  his  business. 
The  old  servant  came  and  asked  if  she  should 
open  the  house,  and  he  nodded.  The  man- 


88  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

servant  —  the  woman's  husband  —  came  also, 
and  to  him  Bradish  nodded ;  and  at  noon  he 
had  luncheon  alone  in  the  fine  new  house  that 
had  just  been  completed  a  year  before  the 
catastrophe. 

About  once  a  week  Bradish  would  board  the 
midnight  express,  ride  down  the  line  for  a  few 
hundred  miles,  and  double  back. 

When  he  went  away  they  knew  he  had  gone, 
and  when  he  came  back  they  knew  he  had  re 
turned  ;  and  that  was  as  much  as  his  house 
keeper,  his  agent,  or  the  foreman  at  the  mines 
could  tell  you. 

One  would  have  thought  that  the  haunting 
memory  of  Ashtabula  would  have  kept  him  at 
home  for  the  rest  of  his  life  ;  but  he  seemed  to 
travel  for  the  sake  of  the  ride  only,  or  for  no 
reason,  as  a  deaf  man  walks  on  the  railroad- 
track. 

Gradually  he  extended  his  trips,  taking  the 
Midland  over  into  Utah  ;  and  once  or  twice  he 
had  been  seen  on  the  rear  end  of  the  California 
Limited  as  it  dropped  down  the  western  water 
shed  of  Raton  Range. 

One  night,  when  the  Limited  was  lapping  up 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  89 

the  landscape  and  the  Desert  was  rushing  in 
under  her  pilot  and  streaking  out  below  the  last 
sleeper  like  tape  from  a  ticker,  the  danger  signal 
sounded  in  the  engine  cab,  the  air  went  on 
full,  the  passengers  braced  themselves  against 
the  seats  in  front  of  them,  or  held  their  breath 
in  their  berths  as  the  train  came  to  a  dead 
stop. 

The  conductor  and  the  head  man  hurried  for 
ward  shouting,  "What's  the  matter?"  to  the 
engineer. 

The  driver,  leaning  from  his  lofty  window, 
asked  angrily,  "What  in  thunder's  the  matter 
with  you?  I  got  a  stop  signal  from  behind." 

"  You  'd  better  lay  off  and  have  a  good  sleep/' 
said  the  conductor. 

"  I  '11  put  you  to  sleep  for  a  minute  if  you  ever 
hint  that  I  was  not  awake  coming  down  Canon 
Diablo."  shouted  the  engineer,  releasing  his 
brakes.  As  the  long,  heavy  train  glided  by,  the 
trainmen  swung  up  like  sailors,  and  away  went 
the  Limited  over  the  long  bridge,  five  minutes 
to  the  bad. 

A  month  later  the  same  thing  happened  on 
the  East  end.  The  engineer  was  signalled  and 


90  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

stopped  on  a  curve  with  the  point  of  his  pilot  on 
a  high  bridge. 

This  time  the  captain  and  the  engineer  were 
not  so  brittle  of  temper.  They  discussed  the 
matter,  calling  on  the  fireman,  who  had  heard 
nothing,  being  busy  in  the  coal-tank. 

The  head  brakeman,  crossing  himself,  said  it 
was  the  "unseen  hand"  that  had  been  stop 
ping  the  Limited  on  the  Desert.  It  might  be  a 
warning,  he  said,  and  walked  briskly  out  on  the 
bridge  looking  for  dynamite,  ghosts,  and  things. 

When  he  had  reached  the  other  end  of  the 
bridge,  he  gave  the  go-ahead  signal  and  the  train 
pulled  out.  As  they  had  lost  seven  minutes,  it 
was  necessary  for  the  conductor  to  report  "cause 
of  delay ;"  and  that  was  the  first  hint  the  officials 
of  any  of  the  Western  lines  had  of  the  "  unseen 
hand." 

Presently  trainmen,  swapping  yarns  at  division 
stations,  heard  of  the  mysterious  signal  on  other 
roads. 

The  Columbia  Limited,  over  on  the  Short 
Line,  was  choked  with  her  head  over  Snake  River, 
at  the  very  edge  of  Pendleton.  When  they  had 
pulled  in  and  a  fresh  crew  had  taken  the  train 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  91 

on,  the  in-coming  captain  and  his  daring  driver 
argued  over  the  incident  and  they  each  got  ten 
days,  —  not  for  the  delay,  but  because  they  could 
not  see  to  sign  the  call-book  next  morning  and 
were  not  fit  to  be  seen  by  other  people. 

The  next  train  stopped  was  the  International 
Limited  on  the  Grand  Trunk,  then  the  Sunset 
by  the  South  Coast. 

The  strange  phenomenon  became  so  general 
that  officials  lost  patience.  One  road  issued  an 
order  to  the  effect  that  any  engineer  who  heard 
signals  when  there  were  no  signals  should  get 
thirty  days  for  the  first  and  his  time  for  the 
second  offence. 

Within  a  week  from  the  appearance  of  the  un 
usual  and  unusually  offensive  bulletin,  "  Baldy  " 
Hooten  heard  the  stop  signal  as  he  neared  a 
little  Junction  town  where  his  line  crossed  another 
on  an  overhead  bridge. 

When  the  signal  sounded,  the  fireman  glanced 
over  at  the  driver,  who  dived  through  the  window 
up  to  his  hip  pockets. 

When  the  engine  had  crashed  over  the  bridge, 
the  driver  pulled  himself  into  the  cab  again,  and 
once  more  the  signal.  The  fireman,  amazed, 


92  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

stared  at  the  engineer.  The  latter  jerked  the 
throttle  wide  open  ;  seeing  which,  the  stoker 
dropped  to  the  deck  and  began  feeding  the 
hungry  furnace.  Ten  minutes  later  the  Limited 
screamed  for  a  regular  stop,  ten  miles  down  the 
line.  As  the  driver  dropped  to  the  ground  and 
began  touching  the  pins  and  links  with  the  back 
of  his  bare  hand,  to  see  if  they  were  all  cool, 
the  head  brakeman  trotted  forward  whispering 
hoarsely,  "The  ol'  man  's  aboard." 

The  driver  waved  him  aside  with  his  flaring 
torch,  and  up  trotted  the  blue-and-gold  con 
ductor  with  his  little  silver  white-light  with  a 
frosted  flue.  "  Why  did  n't  you  stop  at  Pee-Wee 
Junction?"  he  hissed. 

"  Is  Pee-Wee  a  stop  station?" 

"  On  signal." 

"  I  did  n't  see  no  sign." 

"/pulled  the  bell." 

"  Go  on  now,  you  ghost-dancer,"  said  the 
engineer. 

"  You  idiot  ! "  gasped  the  exasperated  con 
ductor.  "  Don't  you  know  the  old  man  's  on, 
that  he  wanted  to  stop  at  Pee-Wee  to  meet  the 
G.  M.  this  morning,  that  a  whole  engineering 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  93 

outfit  will  be  idle  there  for  half  a  day,  and  you  '11 
get  the  guillotine?" 

"  Whew,  you  have  shore  got  'em." 

"  Isn't  your  bell  working?"  asked  a  big  man 
who  had  joined  the  group  under  the  cab  window. 

"  I  think  so,  sir,"  said  the  driver,  as  he  recog 
nized  the  superintendent.  "Johnny,  try  that 
cab  bell,"  he  shouted,  and  the  fire-boy  sounded 
the  big  brass  gong. 

"  Why  didn't  you  take  it  at  Pee-Wee  ?  "  asked 
the  old  man,  holding  his  temper  beautifully. 

The  driver  lifted  his  torch  and  stared  almost 
rudely  into  the  face  of  the  official  in  front  of  him. 
"Why,  Mr.  Skidum,"  said  he  slowly,  "I  didn't 
hear  no  signal" 

The  superintendent  was  blocked. 

As  he  turned  and  followed  the  conductor  into 
the  telegraph  office,  the  driver,  gloating  in  his 
high  tower  of  a  cab,  watched  him. 

"  He  's  an  old  darling,"  said  he  to  the  fire-boy, 
"  and  I  'm  ready  to  die  for  him  any  day ;  but  I 
can't  stop  for  him. in  the  face  of  bulletin  13. 
Thirty  days  for  the  first  offence,  and  then  fire," 
he  quoted,  as  he  opened  the  throttle  and  steamed 
away,  four  minutes  late. 


94 


THE    MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 


The  old  man  drummed  on  the  counter-top  in 
the  telegraph  office,  and  then  picked  up  a  pad 
and  wrote  a  wire  to  his  assistant:  — 

"  Cancel  general  order  No.  13." 

The  night  man  slipped  out  in  the  dawn  and 
called  the  day  man  who  was  the  station  master, 
explaining  that  the  old  man  was  at  the  station 
and  evidently  unhappy. 

The  agent  came  on  unusually  early  and  en 
deavored  to  arrange  for  a  light  engine  to  carry 
the  superintendent  back  to  the  Junction. 

At  the  end  of  three  hours  they  had  a  freight 
engine  that  had  left  its  train  on  a  siding  thirty 
miles  away  and  rolled  up  to  rescue  the  stranded 
superintendent. 

Now,  every  railway  man  knows  that  when  one 
thing  goes  wrong  on  a  railroad,  two  more  mishaps 
are  sure  to  follow  ;  so,  when  the  rescuing  crew 
heard  over  the  wire  that  the  train  they  had  left 
on  a  siding,  having  been  butted  by  another  train 
heading  in,  had  started  back  down  grade,  spilled 
over  -at  the  lower  switch,  and  blocked  the  main 
line,  they  began  to  expect  something  to  happen 
at  home. 

However,  the  driver  had  to  go  when  the  old 


THE  MYSTERIOUS   SIGNAL  95 

man  was  in  the  cab  and  the  G.  M.  with  a  whole 
army  of  engineers  and  workmen  waiting  for  him 
at  Pee-VVee ;  so  he  rattled  over  the  switches  and 
swung  out  on  the  main  line  like  a  man  who  was 
not  afraid. 

Two  miles  up  the  road  the  light  engine, 
screaming  through  a  cut,  encountered  a  flock  of 
sheep,  wallowed  through  them,  left  the  track, 
and  slammed  the  four  men  on  board  up  against 
the  side  of  the  cut. 

Not  a  bone  was  broken,  though  all  of  them 
were  sore  shaken,  the  engineer  being  uncon 
scious  when  picked  up. 

"Go  back  and  report,"  said  the  old  man  to 
the  conductor.  "  You  look  after  the  engineer," 
to  the  fireman. 

"Will  you  flag  west,  sir?"  asked  the  con 
ductor. 

"  Yes,  —  I  '11  flag  into  Pee-Wee,"  said  the  old 
man,  limping  down  the  line. 

To  be  sure,  the  superintendent  was  an  intelli 
gent  man  and  not  the  least  bit  superstitious ;  but 
he  could  n't  help,  as  he  limped  along,  connecting 
these  disasters,  remotely  at  least,  with  general 
order  No.  13. 


96  THE   bfYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

In  time  the  "  unseen  signal  "  came  to  be  talked 
of  by  the  officials  as  well  as  by  train  and  engine- 
men.  It  came  up  finally  at  the  annual  conven 
tion  of  General  Passenger  Agents  at  Chicago 
and  was  discussed  by  the  engineers  at  Atlanta, 
but  was  always  ridiculed  by  the  eastern  element. 

"I  helped  build  the  U.  P.,"  said  a  Buffalo 
man,  "and  I  want  to  tell  you  high-liners  you 
can't  drink  squirrel-whiskey  at  timber-line  with 
out  seein'  things  nights." 

That  ended  the  discussion. 

Probably  no  road  in  the  country  suffered  from 
the  evil  effects  of  the  mysterious  signal  as  did 
the  Inter-Mountain  Air  Line. 

The  regular  spotters  failed  to  find  out,  and  the 
management  sent  to  Chicago  for  a  real  live  de 
tective  who  would  not  be  predisposed  to  accept 
the  "  mystery "  as  such,  but  would  do  his  ut 
most  to  find  the  cause  of  a  phenomenon  that 
was  not  only  interrupting  traffic  but  demoralizing 
the  whole  service. 

As  the  express  trains  were  almost  invariably 
stopped  at  night,  the  expert  travelled  at  night 
and  slept  by  day.  Months  passed  with  only  two 
or  three  "signals."  These  happened  to  be  on 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  97 

the  train  opposed  to  the  one  in  which  the  detec 
tive  was  travelling  at  that  moment.  They 
brought  out  another  man,  and  on  his  first  trip, 
taken  merely  to  "  learn  the  road,"  the  train  was 
stopped  in  broad  daylight.  This  time  the  stop 
proved  to  be  a  lucky  one ;  for,  as  the  engineer  let 
off  the  air  and  slipped  round  a  curve  in  a  canon, 
he  found  a  rock  as  big  as  a  box  car  resting  on 
the  track. 

The  detective  was  unable  to  say  who  sounded 
the  signal.  The  train  crew  were  overawed. 
They  would  not  even  discuss  the  matter. 

With  a  watchman,  unknown  to  the  trainmen, 
on  every  train,  the  officials  hoped  now  to  solve 
the  mystery  in  a  very  short  time. 

The  old  engineer,  McNally,  who  had  found 
the  rock  in  the  canon,  had  boasted  in  the  lodge- 
room,  in  the  round-house  and  out,  that  if  ever 
he  got  the  "ghost-sign,"  he'd  let  her  go.  Of 
course  he  was  off  his  guard  this  time.  He  had 
not  expected  the  "  spook-stop  "  in  open  day. 
And  right  glad  he  was,  too,  that  he  stopped 
that  day. 

A  fortnight  later  McNally,  on  the  night  run, 
was  going  down  Crooked  Creek  Canon  watching 
7 


98  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

the  fireworks  in  the  heavens.  A  black  cloud 
hung  on  a  high  peak,  and  where  its  sable  skirts 
trailed  along  the  range  the  lightning  leaped  and 
flashed  in  sheets  and  chains.  Above  the  roar 
of  wheels  he  could  hear  the  splash,  and  once 
in  a  while  he  could  feel  the  spray,  of  new-made 
cataracts  as  the  water  rushed  down  the  mountain 
side,  choking  the  culverts. 

At  Crag  View  there  was,  at  that  time,  a  high 
wooden  trestle  stilted  up  on  spliced  spruce  piles 
with  the  bark  on. 

It  used  to  creak  and  crack  under  the  engine 
when  it  was  new.  McNally  was  nearing  it  now. 
It  lay,  however,  just  below  a  deep  rock  cut 
that  had  been  made  in  a  mountain  crag  and 
beyond  a  sharp  curve. 

McNally  leaned  from  his  cab  window,  and 
when  the  lightning  flashed,  saw  that  the  cut 
was  clear  of  rock  and  released  the  brakes  slightly 
to  allow  the  long  train  to  slip  through  the  reverse 
curve  at  the  bridge.  Curves  cramp  a  train, 
and  a  smooth  runner  likes  to  feel  them  glide 
smoothly. 

As  the  black  locomotive  poked  her  nose 
through  the  cut,  the  engineer  leaned  out  again ; 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  99 

but  the  after-effect  of  the  flash  of  lightning  left 
the  world  in  inky  blackness. 

Back  in  a  darkened  corner  of  the  drawing- 
room  of  the  rearmost  sleeper  the  sleuth  snored 
with  both  eyes  and  ears  open. 

Suddenly  he  saw  a  man,  fully  dressed,  leap 
from  a  lower  berth  in  the  last  section  and  make 
a  grab  for  the  bell-rope.  The  man  missed  the 
rope ;  and  before  he  could  leap  again  the  detec 
tive  landed  on  the  back  of  his  neck,  bearing  him 
down.  At  that  moment  the  conductor  came 
through ;  and  when  he  saw  the  detective  pull  a 
pair  of  bracelets  from  his  hip-pocket,  he  guessed 
that  the  man  underneath  must  be  wanted,  and 
joined  in  the  scuffle.  In  a  moment  the  man 
was  handcuffed,  for  he  really  offered  no  resist 
ance.  As  they  released  him  he  rose,  and  they 
squashed  him  into  a  seat  opposite  the  section 
from  which  he  had  leaped  a  moment  before. 
The  man  looked  not  at  his  captors,  who  still  held 
him,  but  pressed  his  face  against  the  window. 
He  saw  the  posts  of  the  snow-shed  passing, 
sprang  up,  flung  the  two  men  from  him  as  a 
Newfoundland  would  free  himself  from  a  couple 
of  kittens,  lifted  his  manacled  hands,  leaped 


100  THE   MYSTERIOUS   SIGNAL 

toward  the  ceiling,  and  bore  down  on  the  signal- 
rope. 

The  conductor,  in  the  excitement,  yelled  at 
the  man,  bringing  the  rear  brakeman  from  the 
smoking-room,  followed  by  the  black  boy  bear 
ing  a  shoe-brush. 

Once  more  they  bore  the  bad  man  down,  and 
then  the  conductor  grabbed  the  rope  and  sig 
nalled  the  engineer  ahead. 

Men  leaped  from  their  berths,  and  women 
showed  white  faces  between  the  closely  drawn 
curtains. 

Once  more  the  conductor  pulled  the  bell,  but 
the  train  stood  still. 

One  of  the  passengers  picked  up  the  man's 
hand-grip  that  had  fallen  from  his  berth,  and 
found  that  the  card  held  in  the  leather  tag  read  : 

"JOHN  BRADISH." 

"  Go  forward,"  shouted  the  conductor  to  the 
rear  brakeman,  "and  get  'em  out  of  here,  —  tell 
McNally  we've  got  the  ghost." 

The  detective  released  his  hold  on  his  captive, 
and  the  man  sank  limp  in  the  corner  seat. 

The  company's  surgeon,  who  happened  to  be 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  IOI 

on  the  car,  came  over  and  examined  the  pris 
oner.  The  man  had  collapsed  completely. 

When  the  doctor  had  revived  the  handcuffed 
passenger  and  got  him  to  sit  up  and  ^psals,  febe 
porter,  wild-eyed,  burst  in  and  shouted :  "-Be 
bridge  is  gone."  »,  ,  /*',  ',•>  >  •• * 

A  death-like  hush  held  the  occupants  of  the 
car. 

"  De  hangin'  bridge  is  sho*  gone,"  repeated 
the  panting  porter,  "  an'  de  engine,  wi'  McNally 
in  de  cab's  crouchin'  on  de  bank,  like  a  black 
cat  on  a  well-cu'b.  De  watah's  roahin'  in  de 
deep  gorge,  and  if  she  drap  she  gwine  drag  —  " 

The  doctor  clapped  his  hand  over  the  fright 
ened  darky's  mouth,  and  the  detective  butted 
him  out  to  the  smoking-room. 

The  conductor  explained  that  the  porter  was 
crazy,  and  so  averted  a  panic. 

The  detective  came  back  and  faced  the  doc 
tor.  "Take  off  the  irons,"  said,  the  surgeon, 
and  the  detective  unlocked  the  handcuffs. 

Now  the  doctor,  in  his  suave,  sympathetic 
way,  began  to  question  Bradish  ;  and  Bradish  be 
gan  to  unravel  the  mystery,  pausing  now  and 
again  to  rest,  for  the  ordeal  through  which  he 


102  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

had  just  passed  had  been  a  great  mental  and 
nervous  strain. 

He  began  by  relating  the  Ashtabula  accident 
tttaf  bad  lelt  him  wifeless  and  childless,  and,  as 
the  -story  progressed,  seemed  to  find  infinite  re 
lief  in  heiai  ing  -  the  sad  tale  of  his  lonely  life.  It 
was  like  a  confession.  Moreover,  he  had  kept 
the  secret  so  long  locked  in  his  troubled  breast 
that  it  was  good  to  pour  it  out. 

The  doctor  sat  directly  in  front  of  the  narra 
tor,  the  detective  beside  him,  while  interested 
passengers  hung  over  the  backs  of  seats  and 
blocked  the  narrow  aisle.  Women,  with  faces 
still  blanched,  sat  up  in  bed  listening  breathlessly 
to  the  strange  story  of  John  Bradish. 

Shortly  after  returning  to  their  old  home,  he 
related,  he  was  awakened  one  night  by  the  voice 
of  his  wife  calling  in  agonized  tones,  "John! 
John  !"  precisely  as  she  had  cried  to  him  through 
the  smoke  and  steam  and  twisted  debris  at  Ash- 
tabula.  He  leaped  from  his  bed,  heard  a  mighty 
roar,  saw  a  great  light  flash  on  his  window,  and 
the  midnight  express  crashed  by. 

To  be  sure  it  was  only  a  dream,  he  said  to 
himself,  intensified  by  the  roar  of  the  approach- 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  103 


ing  train ;  and  yet  he  could  sleep  no  more 
that  night.  Try  as  he  would,  he  could  not  forget 
it ;  and  soon  he  realized  that  a  growing  desire  to 
travel  was  coming  upon  him.  In  two  or  three 
days'  time  this  desire  had  become  irresistible. 
He  boarded  the  midnight  train  and  took  a  ride. 
But  this  did  not  cure  him.  In  fact,  the  more  he 
travelled  the  more  he  wanted  to  travel.  Soon 
after  this  he  discovered  that  he  had  acquired 
another  habit.  He  wanted  to  stop  the  train. 
Against  these  inclinations  he  had  struggled,  but 
to  no  purpose.  Once,  when  he  felt  that  he 
must  take  a  trip,  he  undressed  and  went  to  bed. 
He  fell  asleep,  and  slept  soundly  until  he  heard 
the  whistle  of  the  midnight  train.  Instantly  he 
was  out  of  bed,  and  by  the  time  they  had  changed 
engines  he  was  at  the  station  ready  to  go. 

The  mania  for  stopping  trains  had  been  equally 
irresistible.  He  would  bite  his  lips,  his  fingers, 
but  he  would  also  stop  the  train. 

The  moment  the  mischief  (for  such  it  was,  in 
nearly  every  instance)  was  done,  he  would  suffer 
greatly  in  dread  of  being  found  out.  But  to 
night,  as  on  the  occasion  of  the  daylight  stop  in 
the  canon,  he  had  no  warning,  no  opportunity 


104  THE    MYSTERIOUS   SIGNAL 

to  check  himself,  nor  any  desire  to  do  so.  In 
each  instance  he  had  heard,  dozing  in  the  day- 
coach  and  sleeping  soundly  in  his  berth,  the 
voice  cry  :  "  John  !  John  ! "  and  instantly  his  brain 
was  ablaze  with  the  light  of  burning  wreckage. 
In  the  canon  he  had  only  felt,  indefinitely,  the 
danger  ahead  ;  but  to-night  he  saw  the  bridge 
swept  away,  and  the  dark  gorge  that  yawned  in 
front  of  them.  Instantly  upon  hearing  the  cry 
that  woke  him,  he  saw  it  all. 

"  When  I  realized  that  the  train  was  still  mov 
ing,  that  my  first  effort  to  stop  had  failed,  I  flung 
these  strong  men  from  me  with  the  greatest  ease. 
I  'm  sure  I  should  have  burst  those  steel  bands 
that  bound  my  wrists  if  it  had  been  necessary. 

"  Thank  God  it 's  all  over.  I  feel  now  that  I 
am  cured,  —  that  I  can  settle  down  contented." 

The  man  drew  a  handkerchief  from  his  pocket 
and  wiped  his  forehead,  keeping  his  face  to  the 
window  for  a  long  time. 

When  the  conductor  went  forward,  he  found 
that  it  was  as  the  porter  had  pictured.  The  high 
bridge  had  been  carried  away  by  a  water-spout ; 
and  on  the  edge  of  the  opening  the  engine 


THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL  105 

trembled,  her  pilot  pointing  out  over  the  black 
abyss. 

McNally,  having  driven  his  fireman  from  the 
deck,  stood  in  the  cab  gripping  the  air-lever  and 
watching  the  pump.  At  that  time  we  used  what 
is  technically  known  as  "straight  air  "  ;  so  that  if 
the  pump  stopped  the  air  played  out. 

The  conductor  ordered  the  passengers  to  leave 
the  train. 

The  rain  had  ceased,  but  the  lightning  was 
still  playing  about  the  summit  of  the  range,  and 
when  it  flashed,  those  who  had  gone  forward 
saw  McNally  standing  at  his  open  window,  look 
ing  as  grand  and  heroic  as  the  captain  on  the 
bridge  of  his  sinking  ship. 

A  nervous  and  somewhat  thoughtless  person 
came  close  under  the  cab  to  ask  the  engineer 
why  he  did  n't  back  up. 

There  was  no  answer.  McNally  thought  it 
must  be  obvious  to  a  man  with  the  intelligence 
of  an  oyster,  that  to  release  the  brakes  would  be 
to  let  the  heavy  train  shove  him  over  the  bank, 
even  if  his  engine  had  the  power  to  back  up, 
which  she  had  not. 

The  trainmen  were  working  quietly,  but  very 


I06  THE   MYSTERIOUS  SIGNAL 

effectively,  unloading.  The  day  coaches  had 
been  emptied,  the  hand-brakes  set,  and  all  the 
wheels  blocked  with  links  and  pins  and  stones, 
when  the  link  between  the  engine  and  the  mail- 
car  snapped  and  the  engine  moved  forward. 

McNally  heard  the  snap  and  felt  her  going, 
leaped  from  the  window,  caught  and  held  a  scrub 
cedar  that  grew  in  a  rock  crevice,  and  saw  his 
black  steed  plunge  down  the  dark  canon,  a  sheer 
two  thousand  feet. 

McNally  had  been  holding  her  in  the  back 
motion  with  steam  in  her  cylinders ;  and  now, 
when  she  leaped  out  into  space,  her  throttle  flew 
wide,  a  knot  in  the  whistle-rope  caught  in  the 
throttle,  opening  the  whistle-valve  as  well.  Down, 
down  she  plunged,  —  her  wheels  whirling  in  mid 
air,  a  solid  stream  of  fire  escaping  from  her 
quivering  stack,  and  from  her  throat  a  shriek 
that  almost  froze  the  blood  in  the  veins  of  the 
onlookers.  Fainter  and  farther  came  the  cry, 
until  at  last  the  wild  waters  caught  her,  held  her, 
hushed  her,  and  smothered  out  her  life. 


Ceasing  t{je  Mljtte 


CHASING   THE   WHITE   MAIL 


OVER  the  walnuts  and  wine,  as  they  say  in 
Fifth  Avenue,  the  gray-haired  gentleman 
and  I  lingered  long  after  the  last  of  the  diners 
had  left  the  cafe'  car.  One  by  one  the  lights 
were  lowered.  Some  of  the  table-stewards  had 
removed  their  duck  and  donned  their  street 
clothes.  The  shades  were  closely  drawn,  so  that 
people  could  not  peep  in  when  the  train  was 
standing.  The  chief  steward  was  swinging  his 
punch  on  his  finger  and  yawning.  My  venerable 
friend,  who  was  a  veritable  author's  angel,  was  a 
retired  railway  president  with  plenty  of  time  to 
talk. 

"We  had,  on  the  Vandalia,"  he  began  after 
lighting  a  fresh  cigar,  "  a  dare-devil  driver  named 
Hubbard  —  <  Yank '  Hubbard  they  called  him. 
He  was  a  first-class  mechanic,  sober  and  indus 
trious,  but  notoriously  reckless,  though  he  had 
never  had  a  wreck.  The  Superintendent  of 


HO  Cf/AS/A'G    THE    WHITE   MAIL 

Motive  Power  had  selected  him  for  the  post  of 
master-mechanic  at  Effingham,  but  I  had  held 
him  up  on  account  of  his  bad  reputation  as  a 
wild  rider. 

"  We  had  been  having  a  lot  of  trouble  with  Cali 
fornia  fruit  trains,  —  delays,  wrecks,  cars  looted 
while  in  the  ditch, —  and  I  had  made  the  delay 
of  a  fruit  train  almost  a  capital  offence.  The 
bulletin  was,  I  presume,  rather  severe,  and  the 
enginemen  and  conductors  were  not  taking  it 
very  well. 

"  One  night  the  White  Mail  was  standing  at 
the  station  at  East  St.  Louis  (that  was  before  the 
first  bridge  was  built)  loading  to  leave.  My  car 
was  on  behind,  and  I  was  walking  up  and  down 
having  a  good  smoke.  As  I  turned  near  the  en 
gine,  I  stopped  to  watch  the  driver  of  the  White 
Mail  pour  oil  in  the  shallow  holes  on  the  link- 
lifters  without  wasting  a  drop.  He  was  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  engine,  and  I  could  see  only 
his  flitting,  flickering  torch  and  the  dipping, 
bobbing  spout  of  his  oiler. 

"A  man,  manifestly  another  engineer,  came 
up.  The  Mail  driver  lifted  his  torch  and  said, 
*  Hello,  Yank,'  to  which  the  new-comer  made 


CHASING    THE    WHITE    MAIL 


no  direct  response.  He  seemed  to  have  some 
thing  on  his  mind.  '  What  are  you  out  on  ? ' 
asked  the  engineer,  glancing  at  the  other's  over 
alls.  'Fast  freight  —  perishable  —  must  make 
time — no  excuse  will  be  taken,'  he  snapped, 
quoting  and  misquoting  from  my  severe  circular. 
'Who's  in  that  Kaskaskia?'  he  asked,  stepping 
up  close  to  the  man  with  the  torch. 

"'The  oP  man/  said  the  engineer. 

"'No!  oP  man,  eh?  Well!  I'll  give  him  a 
canter  for  his  currency  this  trip/  said  Yank, 
gloating.  '  I  '11  follow  him  like  a  scandal ;  I  '11 
stay  with  him  this  night  like  the  odor  of  a  hot 
box.  Say,  Jimmie/  he  laughed,  'when  that 
tintype  of  yours  begins  to  lay  down  on  you, 
just  bear  in  mind  that  my  pilot  is  under  the  oP 
man's  rear  brake-beam,  and  that  the  headlight  of 
the  99  is  haunting  him.' 

" '  Don't  get  gay,  now/  said  the  engineer  of 
the  White  Mail. 

"  '  Oh,  I  '11  make  him  think  California  fruit  is 
not  all  that 's  perishable  on  the  road  to-night/ 
said  Yank,  hurrying  away  to  the  round-house. 

"  Just  as  we  were  about  to  pull  out,  our  en 
gineer,  who  was  brother  to  Yank,  found  a  broken 


112  CHASING    THE    WHITE   MAIL 

frame  and  was  obliged  to  go  to  the  house  for 
another  locomotive.  We  were  an  hour  late 
when  we  left  that  night,  carrying  signals  for  the 
fast  freight.  As  we  left  the  limits  of  the  yard, 
Hubbard's  headlight  swung  out  on  the  main  line, 
picked  up  two  slender  shafts  of  silver,  and  shot 
them  under  our  rear  end.  The  first  eight  or  ten 
miles  were  nearly  level.  I  sat  and  watched  the 
headlight  of  the  fast  freight.  He  seemed  to  be 
keeping  his  interval  until  we  hit  the  hill  at 
Collinsville.  There  was  hard  pounding  then  for 
him  for  five  or  six  miles.  Just  as  the  Kaskaskia 
dropped  from  the  ridge  between  the  east  and 
west  Silver  Creek,  the  haunting  light  swept  round 
the  curve  at  Hagler's  tank.  I  thought  he  must 
surely  take  water  here  ;  but  he  plunged  on  down 
the  hill,  coming  to  the  surface  a  few  minutes 
later  on  the  high  prairie  east  of  Saint  Jacobs. 

"  Highland,  thirty  miles  out,  was  our  first 
stop.  We  took  water  there ;  and  before  We  could 
get  away  from  the  tank,  Hubbard  had  his  twin 
shafts  of  silver  under  my  car.  We  got  a  good 
start  here,  but  our  catch  engine  proved  to  be 
badly  coaled  and  a  poor  steamer.  Up  to  this 
time  she  had  done  fairly  well,  but  after  the  first 


CHASING    THE    WHITE    MAIL  113 

two  hours  she  began  to  lose.  Seeing  no  more 
of  the  freight  train,  I  turned  in,  not  a  little  pleased 
to  think  that  Mr.  Yank's  headlight  would  not 
haunt  me  again  that  trip.  I  fell  asleep,  but  woke 
again  when  the  train  stopped,  probably  at  Van- 
dalia.  I  had  just  begun  to  doze  again  when  our 
engine  let  out  a  frightful  scream  for  brakes.  I 
knew  what  that  meant,  —  Hubbard  was  behind 
us.  I  let  my  shade  go  up,  and  saw  the  light  of 
the  freight  train  shining  past  me  and  lighting  up 
the  water-tank.  I  was  getting  a  bit  nervous, 
when  I  felt  our  train  pulling  out. 

"  Of  course  Hubbard  had  to  water  again ;  but 
as  he  had  only  fifteen  loads,  and  a  bigger  tank, 
he  could  go  as  far  as  the  Mail  could  without 
stqpping.  Moreover,  we  were  bound  to  stop  at 
county  seats ;  and  as  often  as  we  did  so  we  had 
the  life  scared  out  of  us,  for  there  was  not  an 
air-brake  freight  car  on  the  system  at  that  time. 
What  a  night  that  must  have  been  for  the  freight 
crew !  They  were  on  top  constantly,  but  I 
believe  the  beggars  enjoyed  it  all.  Any  con 
ductor  but  Jim  Lawn  would  have  stopped  and 
reported  the  engineer  at  the  first  telegraph 
station.  Still,  I  have  always  had  an  idea  that 
8 


1 14  CHASING    THE    H'HITE   MAIL 

the  train-master  was  tacitly  in  the  conspiracy, 
for  his  bulletin  had  been  a  hot  one  delivered 
orally  by  the  Superintendent,  whom  I  had 
seen  personally. 

"  Well,  along  about  midnight  Hubbard's  head 
light  got  so  close,  and  kept  so  close,  that  I  could 
not  sleep.  His  brother,  who  was  pulling  the 
Mail,  avoided  whistling  him  down  ;  for  when  he 
did  he  only  showed  that  there  was  danger,  and 
published  his  bad  brother's  recklessness.  The 
result  was  that  when  the  Mail  screamed  I  invari 
ably  braced  myself.  I  don't  believe  I  should 
have  stood  it,  only  I  felt  it  would  all  be  over 
in  another  hour ;  for  we  should  lose  Yank  at 
Effingham,  the  end  of  the  freight's  division.  It 
happened,  however,  that  there  was  no  one  to 
relieve  him,  or  no  engine  rather  ;  and  Yank  went 
through  to  Terre  Haute.  I  was  sorry,  but  I 
hated  to  show  the  white  feather.  I  knew  our 
fresh  engine  would  lose  him,  with  his  tired  fire 
man  and  dirty  fire.  Once  or  twice  I  saw  his 
lamp,  but  at  Longpoint  we  lost  him  for  good. 
I  went  to  bed  again,  but  I  could  not  sleep.  I 
used  to  boast  that  I  could  sleep  in  a  boiler- 
maker's  shop ;  but  the  long  dread  of  that  fellow's 


CHASING    THE    WHITE   MAIL  1 1  cj 

pilot  had  unnerved  me.     I  had  wild,  distressing 
dreams. 

"  The  next  morning,  when  I  got  to  my  office, 
I  found  a  column  of  news  cut  from  a  morning 
paper.  It  had  the  usual  scare-head,  and  began 
by  announcing  that  the  White  Mail,  with  Gen 
eral  Manager  Blank's  car  Kaskaskia,  came  in  on 
time,  carrying  signals  for  a  freight  train.  The  sec 
ond  section  had  not  arrived,  'as  we  go  to  press.' 
I  think  I  swore  softly  at  that  point.  Then  I 
read  on,  for  there  was  a  lot  more.  It  seemed, 
the  paper  stated,  that  a  gang  of  highwaymen 
had  planned  to  rob  the  Mail  at  Longpoint, 
which  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  a  regular 
robber  station.  One  of  the  robbers,  being 
familiar  with  train  rules,  saw  the  signal  lights 
on  the  Mail  and  mistook  it  for  a  special,  which 
is  often  run  as  first  section  of  a  fast  train,  and 
they  let  it  pass.  They  flagged  the  freight  train, 
and  one  of  the  robbers,  who  was  doubtless  new 
at  the  business,  caught  the  passing  engine  and 
climbed  into  the  cab.  The  engineer,  seeing 
the  man's  masked  face  at  his  elbow,  struck  it  a 
fearful  blow  with  his  great  fist.  The  amateur 


Il6  CHASING    THE    WHITE  MAIL 

desperado  sank  to  the  floor,  his  big,  murderous 
gun  rattling  on  the  iron  plate  of  the  coal-deck. 
Yank,  the  engineer,  grabbed  the  gun,  whistled 
off-brakes,  and  opened  the  throttle.  The  sudden 
lurch  forward  proved  too  much  for  a  weak  link, 
and  the  train  parted,  leaving  the  rest  of  the 
robbers  and  the  train  crew  to  fight  it  out.  As 
soon  as  the  engineer  discovered  that  the  train 
had  parted,  he  slowed  down  and  stopped. 

"  When  he  had  picketed  the  highwayman  out 
on  the  tank-deck  with  a  piece  of  bell-cord,  one 
end  of  which  was  fixed  to  the  fellow's  left  foot 
and  the  other  to  the  whistle  lever,  Yank  set  his 
fireman,  with  a  white  light  and  the  robber's  gun, 
on  the  rear  car  and  flagged  back  to  the  rescue. 
The  robbers,  seeing  the  blunder  they  had  made, 
took  a  few  parting  shots  at  the  trainmen  on  the 
top  of  the  train,  mounted  their  horses,  and  rode 
away. 

"When  the  train  had  coupled  up  again,  they 
pulled  on  up  to  the  next  station,  where  the  con 
ductor  reported  the  cause  of  delay,  and  from 
which  station  the  account  of  the  attempted  rob 
bery  had  been  wired. 

"I  put  the  paper  down  and  walked  over  to  a 


CHASING    THE    WHITE   MAIL 


window  that  overlooked  the  yards.  The  second 
section  of  the  White  Mail  was  coming  in.  As 
the  engine  rolled  past,  Yank  looked  up  ;  and  there 
was  a  devilish  grin  on  his  black  face.  The  fire 
man  was  sitting  on  the  fireman's  seat,  the  gun 
across  his  lap.  A  young  fellow,  wearing  a  long 
black  coat,  a  bell-rope,  and  a  scared  look,  was 
sweeping  up  the  deck. 

"  When  I  returned  to  my  desk,  the  Superin 
tendent  of  Motive  Power  was  standing  near  it. 
When  I  sat  down,  he  spread  a  paper  before  me. 
I  glanced  at  it  and  recognized  Yank  Hubbard's 
appointment  to  the  post  of  master-mechanic  at 
Effingham. 

"  I  dipped  a  pen  in  the  ink-well  and  wrote 
across  it  in  red,  '  O  —  K.'  " 


ttie 


OPPRESSING   THE   OPPRESSOR 


IS  this  the  President's  office?" 
"Yes,  sir." 

"Can  I  see  the  President?" 

"  Yes,  —  I  'm  the  President." 

The  visitor  placed  one  big  boot  in  a  chair, 
hung  his  soft  hat  on  his  knee,  dropped  his  elbow 
on  the  hat,  let  his  chin  fall  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  and  waited. 

The  President  of  the  Santa  Fe',  leaning  over  a 
flat-topped  table,  wrote  leisurely.  When  he  had 
finished,  he  turned  a  kindly  face  to  the  visitor 
and  asked  what  could  be  done. 

"  My  name  's  Jones." 

"Yes?" 

"  I  presume  you  know  about  me,  —  Buffalo 
Jones,  of  Garden  City." 

"  Well,"  began  the  President,  "  I  know  a  lot 
of  Joneses,  but  where  is  Garden  City?" 

"  Down  the  road  a  piece,  'bout  half-way  be 
tween  Wakefield  and  Turner's  Tank.  I  want 


122     OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 

you  folks  to  put  in  a  switch  there,  —  that 's  what 
I  Ve  come  about.  I  'd  like  to  have  it  in  this 
week." 

"Anybody  living  at  Garden  City?" 

"  Yes,  all  that 's  there  's  livin'." 

"About  how  many?" 

"  One  and  a  half  when  I  'm  away,  —  Swede 
and  Injin." 

The  President  of  the  Santa  Fe  smiled  and 
rolled  his  lead  pencil  between  the  palms  of  his 
hands.  Mr.  Jones  watched  him  and  pitied  him, 
as  one  watches  and  pities  a  child  who  is  fooling 
with  firearms.  "  He  don't  know  I  'm  loaded," 
thought  Jones. 

"  Well,"  said  the  President,  "  when  you  get 
your  town  started  so  that  there  will  be  some 
prospect  of  getting  a  little  business,  we  shall  be 
only  too  glad  to  put  in  a  spur  for  you." 

Jones  had  been  looking  out  through  an  open 
window,  watching  the  law-makers  of  Kansas 
going  up  the  wide  steps  of  the  State  House.  The 
fellows  from  the  farm  climb.ed,  the  town  fellows 
ran  up  the  steps. 

"  Spur !  "  said  Jones,  wheeling  around  from 
the  window  and  walking  toward  the  President's 


OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 


I23 


desk,  "  I  don't  want  no  spur ;  I  want  a  side 
track  that  '11  hold  fifty  cars,  and  I  want  it  this 
week,  —  see  ?  " 

"Now  look  here,  Mr.  Jones,  this  is  sheer 
nonsense.  We  get  wind  at  Wakefield  and  water 
at  Turner's  Tank ;  now,  what  excuse  is  there 
for  putting  in  a  siding  half-way  between  these 
places?" 

Again  Mr.  Jones,  rubbing  the  point  of  his 
chin  with  the  ball  of  his  thumb,  gave  the  Presi 
dent  a  pitying  glance. 

"  Say !  "  said  Jones,  resting  the  points  of  his 
long  fingers  on  the  table,  "  I  'm  goin'  to  build  a 
town.  You  're  goin'  to  build  a  side  track.  I  Ve 
already  set  aside  ten  acres  of  land  for  you,  for 
depot  and  yards.  This  land  will  cost  you  fifty 
dollars  per,  now.  If  I  have  to  come  back  about 
this  side  track,  it  '11  cost  you  a  hundred.  Now, 
Mr.  President,  I  wish  you  good-mornin'." 

At  the  door  Jones  paused  and  looked  back. 
"Any  time  this  week  will  do  ;  good-mornin'." 

The  President  smiled  and  turned  to  his  desk. 
Presently  he  smiled  again  ;  then  he  forgot  all 
about  Mr.  Jones  and  the  new  town,  and  went  on 
with  his  work. 


124      OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 

Mr.  Jones  went  down  and  out  and  over  to  the 
House  to  watch  the  men  make  laws. 

In  nearly  every  community,  about  every 
capital,  State  or  National,  you  will  find  men  who 
are  capable  of  being  influenced.  This  is  espe 
cially  true  of  new  communities  through  which  a 
railway  is  being  built.  It  has  always  been  so, 
and  will  be,  so  long  as  time  expires.  I  mean 
the  time  of  an  annual  pass.  It  is  not  surprising, 
then,  that  in  Kansas  at  that  time,  the  Grass 
hopper  period,  —  before  prohibition,  Mrs.  Na 
tion,  and  religious  dailies,  —  the  company  had  its 
friends,  and  that  Mr.  Jones,  an  honest  farmer 
with  money  to  spend,  had  his. 

Two  or  three  days  after  tlv  interview  with  Mr. 
Jones,  the  President's  "  friend "  came  over  to 
the  railroad  building.  He  came  in  quietly  and 
seated  himself  near  the  President,  as  a  doctor 
enters  a  sick-room  or  a  lawyer  a  prison  cell.  "  I 
know  you  don't  want  me,"  he  seemed  to  say, 
"but  you  need  me." 

When  his  victim  had  put  down  his  pen, 
the  politician  asked,  "  Have  you  seen  Buffalo 
Jones?" 


OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 


I25 


The  President  said  he  had  seen  the  gentle 
man. 

"  I  think  it  would  be  a  good  scheme  to  give 
him  what  he  wants,"  said  the  Honorable  mem 
ber  of  the  State  legislature. 

But  the  President  could  not  agree  with  his 
friend ;  and  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour,  the 
Honorable  member  went  away  not  altogether 
satisfied.  He  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  the 
President  trying  to  run  the  road  without  his 
assistance.  One  of  the  chief  excuses  for  his 
presence  on  earth  and  in  the  State  legislature 
was  "  to.  take  care  of  the  road."  Now,  he  had 
gotten  up  early  in  order  to  see  the  President 
without  being  seen,  and  the  President  had 
waved  him  aside.  "  Well,"  he  said,  "  I  '11  let 
Jones  have  the  field  to-day." 

Two  days  later,  when  the  President  opened 
his  desk,  he  found  a  brief  note  from  his  confi 
dential  assistant,  —  not  the  Honorable  one,  but 
an  ordinary  man  who  worked  for  the  company 
for  a  stated  salary.  The  note  read  :  — 

"  If  Buffalo  Jones  calls  to-day  please  see  him,  — 
I  am  leaving  town.  G.  O.  M." 


126     OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 

But  Buffalo  did  not  call. 

Presently  the  General  Manager  came  in,  and 
when  he  was  leaving  the  room  he  turned  and 
asked,  "  Have  you  seen  Jones?  " 

"Yes,  "said  the  President  of  the  Santa  Fe', 
"I  Ve  seen  Jones." 

The  General  Manager  was  glad,  for  that  took 
the  matter  from  his  hands  and  took  the  respon 
sibility  from  his  drooping  shoulders. 

About  the  time  the  President  got  his  mind 
fixed  upon  the  affairs  of  the  road  again,  Colonel 
Holiday  came  in.  Like  the  Honorable  gentle 
man,  he  too  entered  by  the  private  door  un 
announced  ;  for  he  was  the  Father  of  the  Santa 
Fe\  Placing  his  high  hat  top  side  down  on 
the  table,  the  Colonel  folded  his  hands  over  the 
golden  head  of  his  cane  and  inquired  of  the 
President  if  he  had  seen  Jones. 

The  President  assured  the  Colonel,  who  in 
addition  to  being  the  Father  of  the  road  was  a 
director. 

The  Colonel  picked  up  his  hat  and  went  out. 
feeling  considerable  relief :  for  his  friend  in  the 
State  Senate  had  informed  him  at  the  Ananias 
Club  on  the  previous  evening,  that  Jones  was 


OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR      127 

going  to  make  trouble  for  the  road.  The  Colo 
nel  knew  that  a  good,  virtuous  man  with  money 
to  spend  could  make  trouble  for  anything  or  any 
body,  working  quietly  and  unobtrusively  among 
the  equally  virtuous  members  of  the  State  legis 
lature.  The  Colonel  had  been  a  member  of 
that  august  body. 

In  a  little  while  the  General  Manager  came 
back ;  and  with  him  came  O'Marity,  the  road- 
master. 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  had  seen  Jones/'  the 
General  Manager  began. 

Now  the  President,  who  was  never  known  to 
be  really  angry,  wheeled  on  his  revolving  chair. 

"I  —  have  —  seen  Jones." 

"Well,  O'Marity  says  Jones  has  not  been 
'  seen.'  His  friend,  who  comes  down  from  Atchi- 
son  every  Sunday  night  on  O'Marity 's  hand-car, 
has  been  good  enough  to  tell  O'Marity  just  what 
has  been  going  on  in  the  House.  There  must 
be  some  mistake.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  this 
man  Jones  had  been  seen  properly,  he  would 
subside.  What 's  the  matter  with  your  friend  — 
Ah,  here  comes  the  Honorable  gentleman  now." 

The  President  beckoned  with  his  index  finger 


128      OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 

and  his  friend  came  in.  Looking  him  in  the  eye, 
the  President  asked  in  a  stage  whisper:  "  Have 
you  —  seen  —  Jones  ?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  said  the  Honorable  gentleman. 
"  I  had  no  authority  to  see  him." 

"It's  damplumny,"  said  O'Marity,  "if  the 
President  'ave  seen  'im,  'e  don't  quit." 

"  I  certainly  saw  a  man  called  Jones,  —  Buffalo 
Jones  of  Garden  City.  He  wanted  a  side  track 
put  in  half-way  between  Wakefield  and  Turner's 
Tank." 

"And  you  told  him,  'Certainly,  we'll  do  it  at 
once/  "  said  the  General  Manager. 

"  No,"  the  President  replied,  "  I  told  him  we 
would  not  do  it  at  once,  because  there  was  no 
business  or  prospect  of  business  to  justify  the 
expense." 

"  Ah— h,"  said  the  Manager. 

O'Marity  whistled  softly. 

The  Honorable  gentleman  smiled,  and  looked 
out  through  the  open  window  to  where  the 
members  of  the  State  legislature  were  going  up 
the  broad  steps  to  the  State  House. 

"  Mr.  Rong,"  the  Manager  began,  "  it  is  all 
a  horrible  mistake.  You  have  never  'seen' 


OPPRESSING    THE    OPPRESSOR 


129 


Jones.  Not  in  the  sense  that  we  mean.  When 
you  see  a  politician  or  a  man  who  herds  with  pol 
iticians,  he  is  supposed  to  be  yours,  —  you  are 
supposed  to  have  acquired  a  sort  of  interest  in 
him,  —  an  interest  that  is  valued  so  long  as  the 
individual  is  in  sight.  You  are  entitled  to  his 
support  and  influence,  up  to,  and  including 
the  date  on  which  your  influence  expires."  All 
the  time  the  Manager  kept  jerking  his  thumb 
toward  the  window  that  held  the  Honorable 
gentleman,  using  the  President's  friend  as  a  liv 
ing  example  of  what  he  was  trying  to  explain. 

"Is  Jones  a  member?" 

"  No,  Mr.  Rong?  but  he  controls  a  few  mem 
bers.  It  is  easier,  you  understand,  to  acquire 
a  drove  of  steers  by  buying  a  bunch  than  by 
picking  them  up  here  and  there,  one  at  a 
time." 

"I  protest,"  said  the  Honorable  member, 
"  against  the  reference  to  members  of  the  legis 
lature  as  '  cattle.'  " 

Neither  of  the  railway  men  appeared  to  hear 
the  protest. 

"  I  think  I  understand  now,"  said  the  Presi 
dent.  "  And  I  wish,  Robson,  you  would  take 
9 


130      OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 

this  matter  in  hand.  I  confess  that  I  have  no 
stomach  for  such  work." 

"Very  well,"  said  the  Manager.  "  Please  in 
struct  your  —  your-  "  and  he  jerked  his  thumb 
toward  the  Honorable  gentleman —  "  your  friend 
to  send  Jones  to  my  office." 

The  Honorable  gentleman  went  white  and 
then  flushed  red,  but  he  waited  for  no  further 
orders.  As  he  strode  towards  the  door,  Rob- 
son,  with  a  smooth,  unruffled  brow,  but  with 
a  cold  smile  playing  over  his  handsome  face, 
with  mock  courtesy  and  a  wide  sweep  of  his 
open  hand,  waved  the  visitor  through  the  open 
door. 

"  Mr.  Jones  wishes  to  see  you,"  said  the  chief 
clerk. 

"  Oh,  certainly  —  show  Mr.  Jones  —  Ah,  good- 
morning,  Mr.  Jones,  glad  to  see  you.  How  's 
Garden  City?  Going  to  let  us  in  on  the  ground 
floor,  Mr.  Rong  tells  me.  Here,  now,  fire  up  ; 
take  this  big  chair  and  tell  me  all  about  your  new 
town. " 

Jones  took  a  cigar  cautiously  from  the  box. 
When  the  Manager  offered  him  a  match  he 


OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR     131 

lighted  up  gingerly,  as  though  he  expected  the 
thing  to  blow  up. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Jones,  as  I  understand  it,  you  want 
a  side  track  put  in  at  once.  The  matter  of 
depot  and  other  buildings  will  wait,  but  I  want 
you  to  promise  to  let  us  have  at  least  ten  acres 
of  ground.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  trans 
fer  that  to  us  at  once.  I  '11  see  "  (the  Manager 
pressed  a  button).  "  Send  the  chief  engineer  to 
me,  George,"  as  the  chief  clerk  looked  in. 

All  this  time  Jones  smoked  little  short  puffs, 
eyeing  the  Manager  and  his  own  cigar.  When 
the  chief  engineer  came  in  he  was  introduced 
to  Mr.  Jones,  the  man  who  was  going  to  give 
Kansas  the  highest  boom  she  had  ever  had. 

While  Jones  stood  in  open-mouthed  amaze 
ment,  the  Manager  instructed  the  engineer  to  go 
to  Garden  City  when  it  would  suit  Mr.  Jones, 
lay  out  a  siding  that  would  hold  fifty  loads, 
and  complete  the  job  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment. 

"  By  the  way,  Mr.  Jones,  have  you  got  trans 
portation  over  our  line?  " 

Mr.  Jones  managed  to  gasp  the  one  word, 
"  No." 


132     OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR 


"Buzz-zz,"  went  the  bell.  "George,  make 
out  an  annual  for  Mr.  Jones,  —  Comp.  G.  M." 

Jones  steadied  himself  by  resting  an  elbow  on 
the  top  of  the  Manager's  desk.  The  chief  en 
gineer  was  writing  in  a  little  note-book. 

"Now,  Mr.  Jones-— ah,  your  cigar's  out!  — 
how  much  is  this  ten  acres  to  cost  us?  —  a  thou 
sand  dollars,  I  believe  you  told  Mr.  Rong." 

"  Yes,  I  did  tell  him  that ;  but  if  this  is  straight 
and  no  jolly,  it  ain't  goin'  to  cost  you  a  cent." 

u  Well,  that 's  a  great  deal  better  than  most 
towns  treat  us,"  said  the  Manager.  "  Now,  Mr. 
Jones,  you  will  have  to  excuse  me  ;  I  have  some 
business  with  the  President.  Don't  fail  to  look 
in  on  me  when  you  come  to  town  ;  and  rest 
assured  that  the  Santa  Fe  will  leave  nothing 
undone  that  might  help  your  enterprise." 

With  a  hearty  handshake  the  Manager,  usu 
ally  a  little  frigid  and  remote,  passed  out,  leaving 
Mr.  Jones  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  chief 
engineer. 

Up  to  this  point  there  is  nothing  unusual  in 
this  story.  The  remarkable  part  is  the  fact  that 
the  building  of  a  side  track  in  an  open  plain 
turned  out  to  be  good  business.  In  a  year's 


OPPRESSING  THE  OPPRESSOR      133 


time  there  was  a  neat  station  and  more  sidings. 
The  town  boomed  with  a  rapidity  that  amazed 
even  the  boomers.  To  be  sure,  it  had  its  re 
lapses  ;  but  still,  if  you  look  from  the  window  as 
the  California  Limited  crashes  by,  you  will  see  a 
pretty  little  town  when  you  reach  the  point  on 
the  time-table  called 

"  Garden  City." 


f  ron 


ana 


THE  IRON  HORSE  AND  THE  TROLLEY 


TWO  prospectors  had  three  claims  in  a  new 
camp  in  British  Columbia,  but  they  had 
not  the  $7.50  to  pay  for  having  them  recorded. 
They  told  their  story  to  Colonel  Topping,  author 
of  "The  Yellowstone  Park,"  and  the  Colonel 
advanced  the  necessary  amount.  In  time  the 
prospectors  returned  $5.00  of  the  loan,  and  gave 
the  Colonel  one  of  the  claims  for  the  balance, 
but  more  for  his  kindness  to  them;  for  they 
reckoned  it  a  bully  good  prospect.  Because 
they  considered  it  the  best  claim  in  the  camp, 
they  called  it  Le  Roi.  Subsequently  the  Colo 
nel  sold  this  "King,"  that  had  cost  him  $2.50, 
for  $30,000.00. 

The  new  owners  of  Le  Roi  stocked  the  claim  ; 
and  for  the  following  two  or  three  years,  when 
a  man  owed  a  debt  that  he  was  unwilling  to 
pay,  he  paid  it  in  Le  Roi  stock.  If  he  felt  like 


138     THE   IRON  HORSE  AND   THE    TROLLEY 

backing  a  doubtful  horse,  he  put  up  a  handful  of 
mining  stock  to  punish  the  winner.  There  is  in 
the  history  of  this  interesting  mine  a  story  of  a 
man  swapping  a  lot  of  Le  Roi  stock  for  a  burro. 
The  former  owner  of  the  donkey  took  the  stock 
and  the  man  it  came  from  into  court,  declaring 
that  the  paper  was  worthless,  and  that  he  had 
been  buncoed.  As  late  as  1894,3  man  who  ran 
a  restaurant  offered  40,000  shares  of  Le  Roi 
stock  for  four  barrels  of  Canadian  whiskey  ;  but 
the  whiskey  man  would  not  trade  that  way. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  men  were  working 
in  the  mine  ;  and  now  they  began  to  ship  ore.  It 
was  worth  $27.00  a  ton,  and  the  stock  became 
valuable.  Scattered  over  the  Northwest  were 
500,000  shares  that  were  worth  $500,000.00. 
Nearly  all  the  men  who  had  put  money  into  the 
enterprise  were  Yankees,  —  mining  men  from 
Spokane,  just  over  the  border.  These  men 
began  now  to  pick  up  all  the  stray  shares  that 
could  be  found  ;  and  in  a  little  while  eight-tenths 
of  the  shares  were  held  by  men  living  south  of 
the  line.  At  Northport,  in  Washington,  they 
built  one  of  the  finest  smelters  in  the  Northwest, 
hauled  their  ore  over  there,  and  smelted  it.  The 


THE  IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY     139 

ore  was  rich  in  gold  and  copper.  They  put  in 
a  300  horse-power  hoisting-engine  and  a  4o-drill 
air-compressor,  —  the  largest  in  Canada, —  taking 
all  the  money  for  these  improvements  out  of  the 
mine.  The  thing  was  a  success,  and  news  of  it 
ran  down  to  Chicago.  A  party  of  men  with 
money  started  for  the  new  gold  fields,  but  as 
they  were  buying  tickets  three  men  rushed  in 
and  took  tickets  for  Seattle.  These  were  min 
ing  men  ;  and  those  who  had  bought  only  to 
British  Columbia  cashed  in,  asked  for  trans 
portation  to  the  coast,  and  followed  the  crowd 
to  the  Klondike. 

In  that  way  Le  Roi  for  the  moment  was 
forgotten. 

II 

THE  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the  Northwest 
Territories,  who  had  been  a  journalist  and  had  a 
nose  for  news,  heard  of  the  new  camp.  All  the 
while  men  were  rushing  to  the  Klondike,  for  it 
is  the  nature  of  man  to  go  from  home  for  a 
thing  that  he  might  secure  under  his  own  vine. 

The  Governor  visited  the  new  camp.  A  man 
named  Ross  Thompson  had  staked  out  a  town 


140     THE  IRON  HORSE   AND   THE    TROLLEY 

at  the  foot  of  Le  Roi  dump  and  called  it  Ross- 
land.  The  Governor  put  men  to  work  quietly 
in  the  mine  and  then  went  back  to  his  plank 
palace  at  Regina,  capital  of  the  Northwest  Terri 
tories,  —  to  a  capital  that  looked  for  all  the  world 
like  a  Kansas  frontier  town  that  had  just  ceased 
to  be  the  county  seat.  Here  for  months  he 
waited,  watching  the  "  Imperial  Limited  "  cross 
the  prairie,  receiving  delegations  of  half-breeds 
and  an  occasional  report  from  one  of  the  com 
mon  miners  in  Le  Roi.  If  a  capitalist  came 
seeking  a  soft  place  to  invest,  the  Governor 
pointed  to  the  West-bound  Limited  and  whis 
pered  in  the  stranger's  ear.  To  all  letters  of  in 
quiry  coming  from  Ottawa  or  England,  —  letters 
from  men  who  wanted  to  be  told  where  to  dig 
for  gold,  —  he  answered,  "  Klondike." 

By  and  by  the  Governor  went  to  Rossland 
again.  The  mine,  of  which  he  owned  not  a 
single  share  of  stock,  was  still  producing. 
When  he  left  Rossland  he  knew  all  about  the 
lower  workings,  the  value  and  extent  of  the  ore 
body. 

By  this  time  nearly  all  the  Le  Roi  shares  were 
held  by  Spokane  people.  The  Governor,  having 


THE   IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY    141 


arranged  with  a  wealthy  English  syndicate,  was 
in  a  position  to  buy  the  mine ;  but  the  owners 
did  not  seem  anxious  to  sell.  Eventually,  how 
ever,  when  he  was  able  to  offer  them  an  average 
of  $7.50  for  shares  that  had  cost  the  holders  but 
from  ten  to  sixty  cents  a  share,  about  half  of 
them  were  willing  to  sell ;  the  balance  were  not. 
Now  the  Governor  cared  nothing  for  this  "  bal 
ance  "  so  long  as  he  could  secure  a  majority,  — 
a  controlling  interest  in  the  mine,  —  for  the 
English  would  have  it  in  no  other  way.  A  few 
thousand  scattering  shares  he  had  already  picked 
up,  and  now,  from  the  faction  who  were  willing 
to  sell,  he  secured  an  option  on  242,000  shares, 
which,  together  with  the  odd  shares  already 
secured,  would  put  his  friends  in  control  of  the 
property. 

As  news  of  the  proposed  sale  got  out,  the 
gorge  that  was  yawning  between  the  two  factions 
grew  wider. 

Finally,  when  the  day  arrived  for  the  transfer 
to  be  made,  the  faction  opposed  to  the  sale  pre 
pared  to  make  trouble  for  those  who  were  sell 
ing,  to  prevent  the  moving  of  the  seal  of  the 
company  to  Canada  —  in  short,  to  stop  the  sale. 


142     THE   IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY 

They  did  not  go  with  guns  to  the  secretary  and 
keeper  of  the  seal  and  say,  "  Bide  where  ye 
be " ;  but  they  went  into  court  and  swore  out 
warrants  for  the  arrest  of  the  secretary  and  those 
of  the  directors  who  favored  the  sale,  charging 
them  with  conspiracy. 

It  was  midnight  in  Spokane. 

A  black  locomotive,  hitched  to  a  dark  day- 
coach,  stood  in  front  of  the  Great  Northern 
station.  The  dim  light  of  the  gauge  lamp 
showed  two  nodding  figures  in  the  cab.  Out 
on  the  platform  a  man  walked  up  and  down, 
keeping  an  eye  on  the  engine,  that  was  to  cost 
him  a  cool  $1000.00  for  a  hundred-mile  run. 
Presently  a  man  with  his  coat-collar  about  his 
ears  stepped  up  into  the  gangway,  shook  the 
driver,  and  asked  him  where  he  was  going. 

"Coin'  to  sleep." 

The  man  would  not  be  denied,  however,  and 
when  he  became  too  pressing,  the  driver  got  up 
and  explained  that  the  cab  of  his  engine  was  his 
castle,  and  made  a  move  with  his  right  foot. 

"  Hold,"  cried  his  tormentor,  "  do  you  know 
that  you  are  about  to  lay  violent  hands  upon  an 
officer  o'  the  law  ?  " 


THE   IRON  HORSE   AND    THE    TROLLEY    143 

"No,"  said  the  engineer,  "but  I'll  lay  a  vio 
lent  foot  up  agin  the  crown-sheet  o'  your  trousers 
if  you  don't  jump." 

The  man  jumped. 

Now  the  chief  despatcher  came  from  the 
station,  stole  along  the  shadow  side  of  the  car, 
and  spoke  to  the  man  who  had  ordered  the 
train. 

A  deputy  sheriff  climbed  up  on  the  rear  end 
of  the  special,  tried  the  door,  shaded  his  eyes, 
and  endeavored  to  look  into  the  car. 

"Have  you  the  running  orders ?"  asked  the 
man  who  was  paying  for  the  entertainment. 

"Yes." 

"  Let  her  go,  then." 

All  this  was  in  a  low  whisper ;  and  now  the 
despatcher  climbed  up  on  the  fireman's  side  and 
pressed  a  bit  of  crumpled  tissue-paper  into  the 
driver's  hand. 

"  Pull  out  over  the  switches  slowly,  and  when 
you  are  clear  of  the  yards  read  your  orders 
an'  fly." 

The  driver  opened  the  throttle  gently,  the  big 
wheels  began  to  revolve,  and  the  next  moment 
the  sheriff  and  one  of  his  deputies  boarded  the 


144 


THE   IRON  HORSE   AXD    THE    TROLLEY 


engine.  They  demanded  to  know  where  that 
train  was  bound  for. 

"The  train,"  said  the  driver,  tugging  at  the 
throttle,  "  is  back  there  at  the  station.  I  'm 
goin'  to  the  round-house." 

When  the  sheriff,  glancing  back,  saw  that  the 
coach  had  been  cut  off,  he  swung  himself 
down. 

"  They  've  gi'n  it  up,"  said  the  deputy. 

"I  reckon  —  what's  that?"  said  the  sheriff. 
It  was  the  wild,  long  whistle  of  the  lone  black 
engine  just  leaving  the  yards.  The  two  officers 
faced  each  other  and  stood  listening  to  the 
flutter  of  the  straight  stack  of  the  black  racer  as 
she  responded  to  the  touch  of  the  erstwhile 
drowsy  driver,  who  was  at  that  moment  laughing 
at  the  high  sheriff,  and  who  would  return  to  tell 
of  it,  and  gloat  in  the  streets  of  Spokane. 

The  sheriff  knew  that  three  of  the  men  for 
whom  he  held  warrants  were  at  Hillier,  seven 
miles  on  the  way  to  Canada.  This  engine, 
then,  had  been  sent  to  pick  them  up  and  bear 
them  away  over  the  border.  An  electric  line 
paralleled  the  steam  way  to  Hillier,  and  now  the 
sheriff  boarded  a  trolley  and  set  sail  to  capture 


THE   IRON  HORSE   AND    THE    TROLLEY     145 

the  engine,  leaving  one  deputy  to  guard  the 
special  car. 

By  the  time  the  engineer  got  the  water  worked 
out  of  his  cylinders,  the  trolley  was  creeping  up 
beside  his  tank.  He  saw  the  flash  from  the  wire 
above  as  the  car,  nodding  and  dipping  like  a 
light  boat  in  the  wake  of  a  ferry,  shot  beneath 
the  cross-wires,  and  knew  instantly  that  she  was 
after  him. 

An  electric  car  would  not  be  ploughing  through 
the  gloom  at  that  rate,  without  a  ray  of  light, 
merely  for  the  fun  of  the  thing.  A  smile  of  con 
tempt  curled  the  lip  of  the  driver  as  he  cut  the 
reverse-lever  back  to  the  first  notch,  put  on  the 
injector,  and  opened  the  throttle  yet  a  little  wider. 

The  two  machines  were  running  almost  neck 
and  neck  now.  The  trolley  cried,  hissed,  and 
spat  fire  in  her  mad  effort  to  pass  the  locomotive. 
A  few  stray  sparks  went  out  of  the  engine-stack 
and  fell  upon  the  roof  of  the  racing  car.  At  in 
tervals  of  half  a  minute  the  fireman  opened  the 
furnace  door ;  and  by  the  flare  of  light  from 
the  white-hot  fire-box  the  engine-driver  could  see 
the  men  on  the  teetering  trolley,  —  the  motor- 
man,  the  conductor,  the  sheriff,  and  his  deputy. 


146     THE   IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY 

Slowly  now  the  black  flier  began  to  slip  away 
from  the  electric  machine. 

The  driver,  smiling  across  the  glare  of  the  fur 
nace  door  at  his  silent,  sooty  companion,  touched 
the  throttle  again  ;  and  the  great  engine  drew 
away  from  the  trolley,  as  a  jack-rabbit  who  has 
been  fooling  with  a  yellow  dog  passes  swiftly  out 
of  reach  of  his  silly  yelp. 

Now  the  men  on  the  trolley  heard  the  wild, 
triumphant  scream  of  the  iron  horse  whistling 
for  Hillier.  The  three  directors  of  Le  Roi  had 
been  warned  by  wire,  and  were  waiting,  ready  to 
board  the  engine. 

The  big  wheels  had  scarcely  stopped  revolv 
ing  when  the  men  began  to  get  on.  They  had 
barely  begun  to  turn  again  when  the  trolley 
dashed  into  Hillier.  The  sheriff  leaped  to  the 
ground  and  came  running  for  the  engine.  The 
wheels  slipped  ;  and  each  passing  second  brought 
the  mighty  hand  of  the  law,  now  outstretched, 
still  nearer  to  the  tail  of  the  tank.  She  was 
moving  now,  but  the  sheriff  was  doing  better. 
Ten  feet  separated  the  pursued  and  the  pursuer. 
She  slipped  again,  and  the  sheriff  caught  the 
corner  of  the  engine-tank.  By  this  time  the 


THE   IRON  HORSE   AND    THE    TROLLEY     147 

driver  had  got  the  sand  running;  and  now,  as 
the  wheels  held  the  rail,  the  big  engine  bounded 
forward,  almost  shaking  the  sheriff  loose.  With 
each  turn  of  the  wheels  the  speed  was  increasing. 
The  sheriff  held  on  ;  and  in  three  or  four  seconds 
he  was  taking  only  about  two  steps  between  tele 
graph  poles,  and  then  —  he  let  go. 


Ill 

WHILE  the  locomotive  and  the  trolley  were 
racing  across  the  country  the  Governor,  who  was 
engineering  it  all,  invested  another  thousand. 
He  ordered  another  engine,  and  when  she  backed 
onto  the  coach  the  deputy  sheriff  told  the  driver 
that  he  must  not  leave  the  station.  The  engi 
neer  held  his  torch  high  above  his  head,  looked 
the  deputy  over,  and  then  went  on  oiling  his  en 
gine.  In  the  meantime  the  Governor  had  stored 
his  friends  away  in  the  dark  coach,  including  the 
secretary  with  the  company's  great  seal.  Now 
the  deputy  became  uneasy. 

He  dared  not  leave  the  train  to  send  a  wire 
to  his  chief  at  Hillier,  for  the  sheriff  had  said, 
"  Keep  your  eye  on  the  car." 


148     THE   IRON  HORSE   AND    THE    TROLLEY 

The  despatcher,  whose  only  interest  in  the 
matter  was  to  run  the  trains  and  earn  money  for 
his  employer,  having  given  written  and  verbal 
orders  to  the  engineer,  watched  his  chance  and, 
when  the  sheriff  was  pounding  on  the  rear  door, 
dodged  in  at  the  front,  signalling  with  the  bell- 
rope  to  the  driver  to  go.  Frantically  now  the 
deputy  beat  upon  the  rear  door  of  the  car,  but 
the  men  within  only  laughed  as  the  wheels  rattled 
over  the  last  switch  and  left  the  lights  of  Spokane 
far  behind. 

Away  they  went  over  a  new  and  crooked  track, 
the  sand  and  cinders  sucking  in  round  the  tail 
of  the  train  to  torment  the  luckless  deputy. 
Away  over  hills  and  rills,  past  Hillier,  where 
the  sheriff  still  stood  staring  down  the  darkness 
after  the  vanishing  engine  ;  over  switches  and 
through  the  Seven  Devils,  while  the  unhappy 
deputy  hung  to  the  rear  railing  with  one  hand 
and  crossed  himself. 

Each  passing  moment  brought  the  racing  train 
still  nearer  the  border,  —  to  that  invisible  line 
that  marks  the  end  of  Yankeeland  and  the  be 
ginning  of  the  British  possessions.  The  sheriff 
knew  this  and  beat  loudly  upon  the  car  door  with 


THE   IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY 


149 


an  iron  gun.  The  Governor  let  the  sash  fall  at 
the  top  of  the  door  and  spoke,  or  rather  yelled, 
to  the  deputy. 

To  the  Governor's  amazement,  the  sheriff 
pushed  the  bottle  aside.  Dry  and  dusty  as  he 
was,  he  would  not  drink.  He  was  too  mad  to 
swallow.  He  poked  his  head  into  the  dark  coach 
and  ordered  the  whole  party  to  surrender. 

"Just  say  what  you  want,"  said  a  voice  in 
the  gloom,  "  and  we  '11  pass  it  out  to  you." 

The  sheriff  became  busy  with  some  curves 
and  reverse  curves  now,  and  made  no  reply. 

Presently  the  Governor  came  to  the  window 
in  the  rear  door  again  and  called  up  the  sheriff. 

"We  are  now  nearing  the  border,"  he  said  to 
the  man  on  the  platform.  "  They  won't  know 
you  over  there.  Here  you  stand  for  law  and 
order,  and  I  respect  you,  though  I  don't  care 
to  meet  you  personally ;  but  over  the  border 
you  '11  only  stand  for  your  sentence,  —  two  years 
for  carrying  a  cannon  on  your  hip,  —  and  then 
they'll  take  you  away  to  prison." 

The  sheriff  made  no  answer. 

"  Now  we  're  going  to  slow  down  at  the  line 
to  about  twenty  miles  an  hour,  more  or  less  ; 


1^0     THE  IRON  HORSE  AND    THE    TROLLEY 

and  if  you  '11  take  a  little  friendly  advice,  you  '11 

fall  off." 

The  train  was  still  running  at  a  furious  pace. 
The  whistle  sounded,  —  one  long,  wild  scream,  — 
and  the  speed  of  the  train  slackened. 

"  Here  you  are,"  the  Governor  called,  and  the 
sheriff  stood  on  the  lower  step. 

The  door  opened  and  the  Governor  stepped 
out  on  the  platform,  followed  by  his  companions. 

"  I  arrest  you,"  the  sheriff  shouted,  "  all  of 
you." 

"  But  you  can't,  —  you  're  in  British  Colum 
bia,"  the  men  laughed. 

"  Let  go,  now,"  said  the  Governor,  and  a 
moment  later  the  deputy  picked  himself  up  and 
limped  back  over  the  border. 


3|n  tlje  HBlacfe  Canon 


IN   THE   BLACK   CANON 


ONE  Christmas,  at  least,  will  live  long  in  the 
memory  of  the  men  and  women  who 
hung  up  their  stockings  at  La  Veta  Hotel  in 
Gunnison  in  18 — .  Ah,  those  were  the  best 
days  of  Colorado.  Tljen  folks  were  brave  and 
true  to  the  traditions  of  Red  Hoss  Mountain, 
when  "  money  flowed  like  liquor,"  and  coal 
strikes  did  n't  matter,  for  the  people  all  had 
something  to  burn. 

The  Yankee  proprietor  of  the  dining-stations 
on  this  mountain  line  had  made  them  as  famous 
almost  as  the  Harvey  houses  on  the  Santa  Fe 
were ;  which  praise  is  pardonable,  since  the 
Limited  train  with  its  cafe  car  has  closed  them 
all. 

But  the  best  of  the  bunch  was  La  Veta,  and 
the  presiding  genius  was  Nora  O'Neal,  the  lady 
manager.  Many  an  R.  &  W.  excursionist  read 
ing  this  story  will  recall  her  smile,  her  great 


154  I**   THE   BLACK  CANON 

gray  eyes,  her  heaps  of  dark  brown  hair,  and 
the  mountain  trout  that  her  tables  held. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  that  time  the 
main  lines  of  the  Rio  Grande  lay  by  the  banks 
of  the  Gunnison,  through  the  Black  Canon,  over 
Cerro  Summit,  and  down  the  Uncompaghre 
and  the  Grande  to  Grand  Junction,  the  gate  of 
the  Utah  Desert. 

John  Cassidy  was  an  express  messenger  whose 
run  was  over  this  route  and  whose  heart  and  its 
secret  were  in  the  keeping  of  Nora  O'Neal. 

From  day  to  day,  from  week  to  week,  he  had 
waited  her  answer,  which  was  to  come  to  him 
"by  Christmas." 

And  now,  as  only  two  days  remained,  he 
dreaded  it,  as  he  had  hoped  and  prayed  for  it 
since  the  aspen  leaves  began  to  gather  their 
gold.  He  knew  by  the  troubled  look  she  wore 
when  off  her  guard  that  Nora  was  thinking. 

Most  of  the  men  who  were  gunning  in  Gunni 
son  in  the  early  So's  were  fearless  men,  who, 
when  a  difference  of  opinion  arose,  faced  each 
other  and  fought  it  out ;  but  there  had  come  to 
live  at  La  Veta  a  thin,  quiet,  handsome  fellow, 


IN   THE   BLACK  CANON 


who  moved  mysteriously  in  and  out  of  the  camp, 
slept  a  lot  by  day,  and  showed  a  fondness  for 
faro  by  night.  When  a  name  was  needed  he 
signed  "  Buckingham."  His  icy  hand  was  soft 
and  white,  and  his  clothes  fitted  him  faultlessly. 
He  was  handsome,  and  when  he  paid  his  bill  at 
the  end  of  the  fourth  week  he  proposed  to  Nora 
O'Neal.  He  was  so  fairer,  physically,  than 
Cassidy  and  so  darker,  morally,  that  Nora  could 
not  make  up  her  mind  at  all,  at  all. 

In  the  shadow  time,  between  sunset  and  gas 
light,  on  the  afternoon  of  the  last  day  but  one 
before  Christmas,  Buck,  as  he  came  to  be  called, 
leaned  over  the  office  counter  and  put  a  folded 
bit  of  white  paper  in  Nora's  hand,  saying,  as  he 
closed  her  fingers  over  it  :  "  Put  this  powder  in 
Cassidy  's  cup."  He  knew  Cassidy  merely  as 
the  messenger  whose  freight  he  coveted,  and 
not  as  a  contestant  for  Nora's  heart  and  hand, 
—  a  hand  he  prized,  however,  as  he  would  a 
bob-tailed  flush,  but  no  more. 

As  for  Cassidy,  he  would  be  glad,  waking,  to 
find  himself  alive  ;  and  if  this  plan  miscarried, 
Buck  should  be  able  to  side-step  the  gallows. 
Anyway,  dope  was  preferable  to  death. 


156  IN   THE   BLACK  CANON 

Nora  opened  her  hand,  and  in  utter  amaze 
ment  looked  at  the  paper.  Some  one  inter 
rupted  them.  Buck  turned  away,  and  Nora 
shoved  the  powder  down  deep  into  her  jacket 
pocket,  feeling  vaguely  guilty. 

No.  7,  the  Salt  Lake  Limited,  was  an  hour 
late  that  night.  The  regular  dinner  (we  called  it 
supper  then)  was  over  when  Shanley  whistled 
in. 

As  the  headlight  of  the  Rockaway  engine 
gleamed  along  the  hotel  windows,  Nora  went 
back  to  see  that  everything  was  ready. 

In  the  narrow  passage  between  the  kitchen 
and  the  dining-room  she  met  Buckingham. 
"  What  are  you  doing  here?"  she  demanded. 

"  Now,  my  beauty,"  said  Buck,  laying  a  cold 
hand  on  her  arm,  "  don't  be  excited." 

She  turned  her  honest  eyes  to  him  and  he 
almost  visibly  shrank  from  them,  as  she  had 
shuddered  at  the  strange,  cold  touch  of  his 
hand. 

"  Put  that  powder  in  Cassidy's  cup,"  he  said, 
and  in  the  half-light  of  the  little  hallway  she  saw 
his  cruel  smile. 


IN   THE   BLACK  CANON  157 

"  And  kill  Cassidy,  the  best  friend  I  have  on 
earth?" 

"  It  will  not  kill  him,  but  it  may  save  his  life. 
I  shall  be  in  his  car  to-night.  Sabe  ?  Do  as  I 
tell  you.  He  will  only  fall  asleep  for  a  little 
while,  otherwise  —  well,  he  may  oversleep  him 
self."  She  would  have  passed  on,  but  he  stayed 
her.  "Where  is  it?"  he  demanded,  with  a 
meaning  glance. 

She  touched  her  jacket  pocket,  and  he  re 
leased  his  hold  on  her  arm. 

The  shuffle  and  scuffle  of  the  feet  of  hungry 
travellers  who  were  piling  into  the  dining-room 
had  disturbed  them .  Nora  passed  on  to  the  rear, 
Buck  out  to  sit  down  and  dine  with  the  passengers, 
who  always  had  a  shade  the  best  of  the  bill. 

From  his  favorite  seat,  facing  the  audience,  he 
watched  the  trainmen  tumbling  into  the  alcove 
off  the  west  wing,  in  one  corner  of  which  a  couple 
of  Pullman  porters  in  blue  and  gold  sat  at  a  small 
table,  feeding  with  their  forks  and  behaving  better 
than  some  of  their  white  comrades  behaved. 

Cassidy  came  in  a  moment  later,  sat  down, 
and  looked  over  to  see  if  his  rival  was  in  his 


158  Iff   THE   BLACK   CANON 

accustomed  place.  The  big  messenger  looked 
steadily  at  the  other  man,  who  had  never  guessed 
the  messenger's  secret,  and  the  other  man 
looked  down. 

Already  his  supper,  steaming  hot,  stood  before 
him,  while  the  table-girl  danced  attendance  for 
the  tip  she  was  always  sure  of  at  the  finish.  She 
studied  his  tastes  and  knew  his  wants,  from  rare 
roast  down  to  the  small,  black  coffee  with  which 
he  invariably  concluded  his  meal. 

When  Buck  looked  up  again  he  saw  Nora 
approach  the  table,  smile  at  Cassidy,  and  put  a 
cup  of  coffee  down  by  his  plate. 

The  trainmen  were  soon  through  with  their 
supper,  being  notoriously  rapid  feeders,  —  which 
disastrous  habit  they  acquire  while  on  freight, 
when  they  are  expected  to  eat  dinner  and  do 
an  hour's  switching  in  twenty  minutes. 

Unusually  early  for  him,  Buck  passed  out. 
Nora  purposely  avoided  him,  but  watched  him 
from  the  unlighted  little  private  office.  She  saw 
him  light  a  cigar  and  stroll  down  the  long  plat 
form.  At  the  rear  of  the  last  Pullman  he  threw 
his  cigar  away  and  crossed  quickly  to  the 
shadow  side  of  the  train.  She  saw  him  pass 


IN   THE   BLACK  CANON  159 

along,  for  there  were  no  vestibules  then,  and 
made  no  doubt  he  was  climbing  into  Cassidy's 
car.  As  the  messenger  reached  for  his  change, 
the  cashier-manager  caught  his  hand,  drew  it 
across  the  counter,  leaned  toward  him,  saying 
excitedly  :  "  Be  careful  to-night,  John  ;  don't 
fall  asleep  or  nod  for  a  moment.  Oh,  be  care 
ful  ! "  she  repeated,  with  ever-increasing  inten 
sity,  her  hot  hand  trembling  on  his  great  wrist ; 
"  be  careful,  come  back  safe,  and  you  shall  have 
your  answer." 

When  Cassidy  came  back  to  earth  he  was 
surrounded  by  half  a  dozen  good-natured  pas 
sengers,  men  and  women,  who  had  come  out  of 
the  dining-room  during  the  ten  or  fifteen  seconds 
he  had  spent  in  Paradise. 

A  swift  glance  at  the  faces  about  told  him  that 
they  had  seen,  another  at  Nora  that  she  was 
embarrassed  ;  but  in  two  ticks  of  the  office  clock 
he  protected  her,  as  he  would  his  safe  ;  for  his 
work  and  time  had  trained  him  to  be  ready 
instantly  for  any  emergency. 

"Good-night,  sister,"  he  called  cheerily,  as  he 
hurried  toward  the  door. 

"  Good-night,  John,"  said  Nora,  glancing   up 


l6o  IN   THE   BLACK  CANON 

from  the  till,  radiant  with  the  excitement  of  her 
"sweet  distress." 

"  Oh,  by  Jove  !  "  said  a  man. 

"  Huh  !  "  said  a  woman,  and  they  looked  like 
people  who  had  just  missed  a  boat. 

With  her  face  against  the  window,  Nora 
watched  the  red  lights  on  the  rear  of  No.  7 
swing  out  to  the  main  line. 

Closing  the  desk,  she  climbed  to  her  room  on 
the  third  floor  and  knelt  by  the  window.  Away 
out  on  the  shrouded  vale  she  saw  the  dark  train 
creeping,  a  solid  stream  of  fire  flowing  from  the 
short  stack  of  the  "  shotgun  " ;  for  Peasley  was 
pounding  her  for  all  she  was  worth  in  an  honest 
effort  to  make  up  the  hour  that  Shanley  had 
lost  in  the  snowdrifts  of  Marshall  Pass.  Pres 
ently  she  heard  the  muffled  roar  of  the  train  on 
a  trestle,  and  a  moment  later  saw  the  Salt  Lake 
Limited  swallowed  by  the  Black  Canon,  in  whose 
sunless  gorges  many  a  driver  died  before  the 
scenery  settled  after  having  been  disturbed  by 
the  builders  of  the  road. 

Over  ahead  in  his  quiet  car  Cassidy  sat 
musing,  smoking,  and  wondering  why  Nora 


IN  THE  BLACK  CANON  l6l 

should  seem  so  anxious  about  him.  Turning, 
he  glanced  about.  Everything  looked  right,  but 
the  girl's  anxiety  bothered  him. 

Picking  up  a  bundle  of  way-bills,  he  began 
checking  up.  The  engine  screamed  for  Sapi- 
nero,  and  a  moment  later  he  felt  the  list  as  they 
rounded  Dead  Man's  Curve. 

Unless  they  were  flagged,  the  next  stop  would 
be  at  Cimarron,  at  the  other  end  of  the  canon. 

His  work  done,  the  messenger  lighted  his 
pipe,  settled  himself  in  his  high-backed  canvas 
camp-chair,  and  put  his  feet  up  on  his  box  for  a 
good  smoke.  He  tried  to  think  of  a  number  of 
things  that  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
Nora,  but  somehow  she  invariably  elbowed  into 
his  thoughts. 

He  leaned  over  and  opened  his  box  —  not 
the  strong-box,  but  the  wooden,  trunk-like  box 
that  holds  the  messenger's  street-coat  when  he  's 
on  duty  and  his  jumper  when  he  's  off.  On  the 
under  side  of  the  lifted  lid  he  had  fixed  a  large 
panel  picture  of  Nora  O'Neal. 

Buckingham,  peering  over  a  piano-box,  behind 
which   he   had    hidden   at    Gunnison,   saw  and 
ii 


1 62  IN   THE  BLACK  CANON 

recognized  the  photograph ;  for  the  messenger's 
white  light  stood  on  the  little  safe  near  the 
picture.  For  half  an  hour  he  had  been  watching 
Cassidy,  wondering  why  he  did  not  fall  asleep. 
He  had  seen  Nora  put  the  cup  down  with  her 
own  hand,  to  guard,  as  he  thought,  against  the 
possibility  of  a  mistake.  What  will  a  woman  not 
dare  and  do  for  the  man  she  loves  ?  He  sighed 
softly.  He  recalled  now  that  he  had  always 
exercised  a  powerful  influence  over  women,  — 
that  is,  the  few  he  had  known,  —  but  he  was  sur 
prised  that  this  consistent  Catholic  girl  should 
be  so  "  dead  easy." 

"  And  now  look  at  this  one  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  pounds  of  egotism  sitting  here  smil 
ing  on  the  likeness  of  the  lady  who  has  just 
dropped  bug-dust  in  his  coffee.  It 's  positively 
funny." 

Such  were  the  half-whispered  musings  of  the 
would-be  robber. 

He  actually  grew  drowsy  waiting  for  Cassidy 
to  go  to  sleep.  The  car  lurched  on  a  sharp 
curve,  dislodging  some  boxes.  Buck  felt  a 
strange,  tingling  sensation  in  his  fingers  and 
toes.  Presently  he  nodded. 


IN   THE  BLACK  CANON  163 

Cassidy  sat  gazing  on  the  pictured  face  that 
had  hovered  over  him  in  all  his  dreams  for 
months,  and  as  he  gazed,  seemed  to  feel  her 
living  presence.  He  rose  as  if  to  greet  her,  but 
kept  his  eyes  upon  the  picture. 

Suddenly  realizing  that  something  was  wrong 
in  his  end  of  the  car,  Buck  stood  up,  gripping 
the  top  of  the  piano-box.  The  scream  of  the 
engine  startled  him.  The  car  crashed  over  the 
switch-frog  at  Curecanti,  and  Curecanti's  Needle 
stabbed  the  starry  vault  above.  The  car  swayed 
strangely  and  the  lights  grew  dim. 

Suddenly  the  awful  truth  flashed  through  his 
bewildered  brain. 

"  O-o-o-oh,  the  wench  !  "  he  hissed,  pulling 
his  guns. 

Cassidy,  absorbed  in  the  photo,  heard  a  door 
slam ;  and  it  came  to  him  instantly  that  Nora  had 
boarded  the  train  at  Gunnison,  and  that  some 
one  was  showing  her  over  to  the  head  end.  As 
he  turned  to  meet  her,  he  saw  Buck  staggering 
toward  him,  holding  a  murderous  gun  in  each 
hand.  Instantly  he  reached  for  his  revolver,  but 
a  double  flash  from  the  guns  of  the  enemy 


164  tN  THE   BLACK  CANON 

blinded  him  and  put  out  the  bracket-lamps.  As 
the  messenger  sprang  forward  to  find  his  foe,  the 
desperado  lunged  against  him.  Cassidy  grabbed 
him,  lifted  him  bodily,  and  smashed  him  to  the 
floor  of  the  car ;  but  with  the  amazing  tenacity 
and  wonderful  agility  of  the  trained  gun-fighter, 
Buck  managed  to  fire  as  he  fell.  The  big  bullet 
grazed  the  top  of  Cassidy's  head,  and  he  fell  un 
conscious  across  the  half-dead  desperado. 

Buck  felt  about  for  his  gun,  which  had  fallen 
from  his  hand ;  but  already  the  '*  bug-dust "  was 
getting  in  its  work.  Sighing  heavily,  he  joined 
the  messenger  in  a  quiet  sleep. 

At  Cimarron  they  broke  the  car  open,  revived 
the  sleepers,  restored  the  outlaw  to  the  Ohio 
State  Prison,  from  which  he  had  escaped,  and 
the  messenger  to  Nora  O'Neal. 


JACK    RAMSEY'S    REASON 


WHEN  Bill  Ross  romped  up  over  the  range 
and  blew  into  Edmonton  in  the  wake  of 
a  warm  chinook,  bought  tobacco  at  the  Hud 
son's  Bay  store,  and  began  to  regale  the  gang 
with  weird  tales  of  true  fissures,  paying  placers, 
and  rich  loads  lying  "  virgin,"  as  he  said,  in 
Northern  British  Columbia,  the  gang  accepted 
his  tobacco  and  stories  for  what  they  were  worth  ; 
for  it  is  a  tradition  up  there  that  all  men  who 
come  in  with  the  Mudjekeewis  are  liars. 

That  was  thirty  years  ago. 

The  same  chinook  winds  that  wafted  Bill  Ross 
and  his  rose-hued  romances  into  town  have 
winged  them,  and  the  memory  of  them,  away. 

In  the  meantime  Ross  reformed,  forgot,  the 
people  forgave  and  made  him  Mayor  of  Edmonton. 

When  Jack  Ramsey  called  at  the  capital  of 
British  Columbia  and  told  of  a  territory  in  that 
great  Province  where  the  winter  winds  blew  warm, 


1 68  JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON 

where  snow  fell  only  once  in  a  while  and  was 
gone  again  with  the  first  peep  of  the  sun  ;  of  a 
mountain-walled  wonderland  between  the  Coast 
Range  and  the  Rockies,  where  flowers  bloomed 
nine  months  in  the  year  and  gold  could  be  panned 
on  almost  any  of  the  countless  rivers,  men  said  he 
had  come  down  from  Alaska,  and  that  he  lied. 

To  be  sure,  they  did  not  say  that  to  Jack,  — 
they  only  telegraphed  it  one  to  another  over 
their  cigars  in  the  club.  Some  of  them  actually 
believed  it,  and  one  man  who  had  made  money  in 
California  and  later  in  Leadville  said  he  knew  it 
was  so ;  for,  said  he,  "  Jack  Ramsey  never  says 
or  does  a  thing  without  a  *  reason.'  " 

At  the  end  of  a  week  this  English-bred  Yankee 
had  organized  the  "Chinook  Mining  and  Milling 
Company,  Limited." 

This  man  was  at  the  head  of  the  scheme,  with 
Jack  Ramsey  as  Managing  Director. 

Ramsey  was  a  prospector  by  nature  made 
proficient  by  practice.  He  had  prospected  in 
every  mining  camp  from  Mexico  to  Moose 
Factory.  If  he  were  to  find  a  real  bonanza, 
his  English-American  friend  used  to  say,  he 
would  be  miserable  for  the  balance  of  his  days, 


JACK  RAMSEVS  REASON  169 

or  rather  his  to-morrows.  He  lived  in  his  to 
morrows,  —  in  these  and  in  dreams.  He  loved 
women,  wine,  and  music,  and  the  laughter  of 
little  children ;  but  better  than  all  these  he 
loved  the  wilderness  and  the  wildflowers  and 
the  soft,  low  singing  of  mountain  rills.  He  loved 
the  flowers  of  the  North,  for  they  were  all  sweet 
and  innocent.  On  all  the  two  thousand  five  hun 
dred  miles  of  the  Yukon,  he  used  to  say,  there 
is  not  one  poisonous  plant ;  and  he  reasoned 
that  the  plants  of  the  Peace  and  the  Pine  and 
the  red  roses  of  the  Upper  Athabasca  would  be 
the  same. 

And  so,  one  March  morning,  he  sailed  up  the 
Sound  to  enter  his  mountain-walled  wonderland 
by  the  portal  of  Port  Simpson,  which  opens  on 
the  Pacific.  His  English- American  friend  went 
up  as  far  as  Simpson,  and  when  the  little  coast 
steamer  poked  her  prow  into  Work  Channel  he 
touched  the  President  of  the  Chinook  Mining 
and  Milling  Company  and  said,  "  The  Gateway 
to  God's  world." 

The  head  of  the  C.  M.  &  M.  Company  was 
not  surprised  when  Christmas  came  ahead  of  Jack 


170  JACK  RAMSEVS  REASON 

Ramsey's  preliminary  report.  Jack  was  a  care 
ful,  conservative  prospector,  and  would  not  send 
a  report  unless  there  was  a  good  and  substantial 
reason  for  writing  it  out. 

In  the  following  summer  a  letter  came, —  an 
extremely  short  one,  considering  what  it  con 
tained  ;  for  it  told,  tersely,  of  great  prospects  in 
the  wonderland.  It  closed  with  a  request  for  a 
new  rifle,  some  garden-seeds,  and  an  H.  B.  letter 
of  credit  for  five  hundred  dollars. 

After  a  warm  debate  among  the  directors  it 
was  agreed  the  goods  should  go. 

The  following  summer  —  that  is,   the  second 
summer  in  the  life  of  the  Chinook  Company  — 
Dawson  dawned  on  the  world.     That  year  about 
half  the  floating  population  of  the  Republic  went 
to  Cuba  and  the  other  half  to  the  Klondike. 

As  the  stream  swelled  and  the  channel  be 
tween  Vancouver  Island  and  the  mainland  grew 
black  with  boats,  the  President  of  the  C.  M.  &  M. 
Company  began  to  pant  for  Ramsey,  that  he 
might  join  the  rush  to  the  North.  That  exciting 
summer  died  and  another  dawned,  with  no  news 
from  Ramsey. 

When  the  adventurous  English-American  could 


JACK  RAMSEY'S   REASON 


withstand  the  strain  no  longer,  he  shipped  for 
Skagway  himself.  He  dropped  off  at  Port 
Simpson  and  inquired  about  Ramsey. 

Yes,  the  Hudson  people  said,  it  was  quite 
probable  that  Ramsey  had  passed  in  that  way. 
Some  hundreds  of  prospectors  had  gone  in 
during  the  past  three  years,  but  the  current 
created  by  the  Klondike  rush  had  drawn  most 
of  them  out  and  up  the  Sound. 

One  man  declared  that  he  had  seen  Ramsey 
ship  for  Skagway  on  the  "  Dirigo,"  and,  after  a 
little  help  and  a  few  more  drinks,  gave  a  minute 
description  of  a  famous  nugget  pin  which  the 
passing  pilgrim  said  the  prospector  wore. 

And  so  the  capitalist  took  the  next  boat  for 
Skagway. 

By  the  time  he  reached  Dawson  the  death- 
rattle  had  begun  to  assert  itself  in  the  bosom  of 
the  boom.  The  most  diligent  inquiry  failed  to 
reveal  the  presence  of  the  noted  prospector.  On 
the  contrary,  many  old-timers  from  Colorado 
and  California  declared  that  Ramsey  had  never 
reached  the  Dike  —  that  is,  not  since  the  boom. 
In  a  walled  tent  on  a  shimmering  sand-bar  at 
the  mouth  of  the  crystal  Klondike,  Captain 


I  72  JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON 

Jack  Crawford,  the  "  Poet  Scout,"  severely  sober 
in  that  land  of  large  thirsts,  wearing  his  old-time 
halo  of  lady-like  behavior  and  hair,  was  conduct 
ing  an  "  Ice  Cream  Emporium  and  Soft-drink 
Saloon." 

"  No,"  said  the  scout,  with  the  tips  of  his 
tapered  fingers  trembling  on  an  empty  table, 
straining  forward  and  staring  into  the  stranger's 
face  ;  "  no,  Jack  Ramsey  has  not  been  here  ; 
and  if  what  you  say  be  true  —  he  sleeps  alone 
in  yonder  fastness.  Alas,  poor  Ramsey  !  —  Ah 
knew  'im  well  "  ;  and  he  sank  on  a  seat,  shak 
ing  with  sobs. 

The  English-American,  on  his  way  out,  stopped 
at  Simpson  again.  From  a  half-breed  trapper  he 
heard  of  a  white  man  who  had  crossed  the 
Coast  Range  three  grasses  ago.  This  white  man 
had  three  or  four  head  of  cattle,  a  Cree  servant, 
and  a  queer-looking  cayuse  with  long  ears  and  a 
mournful,  melancholy  cry.  This  latter  member 
of  the  gang  carried  the  outfit. 

Taking  this  half-caste  Cree  to  guide  him,  the 
mining  man  set  out  in  search  of  the  long-lost 
Ramsey.  They  crossed  the  first  range  and 


JACK  RAMSEVS   REASON  173 

searched  the  streams  north  of  the  Peace  River 
pass,  almost  to  the  crest  of  the  continent,  but 
found  no  trace  of  the  prospector. 

When  the  summer  died  and  the  wilderness 
was  darkened  by  the  Northern  night,  the  search 
was  abandoned. 

The  years  drifted  into  the  past,  and  finally  the 
Chinook  Mining  and  Milling  Company  went 
to  the  wall.  The  English-American  promoter, 
smarting  under  criticism,  reimbursed  each  of  his 
associates  and  took  over  the  office,  empty  ink 
stands  and  blotting  paper,  and  so  blotted  out  all 
records  of  the  one  business  failure  of  his  life. 

But  he  could  not  blot  out  Jack  Ramsey  from 
his  memory.  There  was  a  "reason,"  he  would 
say,  for  Ramsey's  silence. 

One  day,  when  in  Edmonton,  he  met  Mayor 
Ross,  who  had  come  into  the  country  by  the 
back  door  some  thirty  years  ago.  The  tales 
coaxed  from  the  Mayor's  memory  corresponded 
with  Ramsey's  report ;  and  having  nothing  but 
time  and  money,  the  ex-President  of  the  C.  M. 
&  M.  Company  determined  to  go  in  via  the 
Peace  River  pass  and  see  for  himself.  He  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Smith  "The  Silent,"  as  he 


174  JACK  RAMSEY'S   REASON 

was  called,  who  was  at  that  time  pathfinding  for 
the  Grand  Trunk  Pacific,  and  secured  permis 
sion  to  go  in  with  the  engineers. 

At  Little  Slave  Lake  he  picked  up  Jim 
Cromwell,  a  free-trader,  who  engaged  to  guide 
the  mining  man  into  the  wonderland  he  had 
described. 

The  story  of  Ramsey  and  his  rambles  appealed 
to  Cromwell,  who  talked  tirelessly,  and  to  the 
engineer,  who  listened  long ;  and  in  time  the 
habitants  of  Cromwell's  domains,  which  covered 
a  country  some  seven  hundred  miles  square,  all 
knew  the  story  and  all  joined  in  the  search. 

Beyond  the  pass  of  the  Peace  an  old  Cree 
caught  up  with  them  and  made  signs,  for  he  was 
deaf  and  dumb.  But  strange  as  it  may  seem, 
somehow,  somewhere,  he  had  heard  the  story  of 
the  lost  miner  and  knew  that  this  strange  white 
man  was  the  miner's  friend. 

Long  he  sat  by  the  camp  fire,  when  the  camp 
was  asleep,  trying,  by  counting  on  his  fingers 
and  with  sticks,  to  make  Cromwell  understand 
what  was  on  his  mind. 

When  day  dawned,  he  plucked  Cromwells' 
sleeve,  then  walked  away  fifteen  or  twenty  steps, 


JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON  175 

stopped,  unrolled  his  blankets,  and  lay  down, 
closing  his  eyes  as  if  asleep.  Presently  he  got 
up,  rubbed  his  eyes,  lighted  his  pipe,  smoked 
for  awhile,  then  knocked  the  fire  out  on  a  stone. 
Then  he  got  up,  stamped  the  fire  out  as  though 
it  had  been  a  camp  fire,  rolled  up  his  blankets, 
and  travelled  on  down  the  slope  some  twenty 
feet  and  repeated  the  performance.  On  the 
next  march  he  made  but  ten  feet.  He  stopped, 
put  his  pack  down,  seated  himself  on  the  trunk 
of  a  fallen  tree  and,  with  his  back  to  Cromwell, 
began  gesticulating,  as  if  talking  to  some  one, 
nodding  and  shaking  his  head.  Then  he  got  a 
pick  and  began  digging. 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  Cromwell  and  the 
engineer  had  agreed  that  these  stations  were 
day's  marches  and  the  rests  camping  places.  In 
short,  it  was  two  and  a  half"  sleeps  "  to  what  he 
wanted  to  show  them,  —  a  prospect,  a  gold  mine 
maybe,  —  and  so  Cromwell  and  the  English- 
American  detached  themselves  and  set  out  at  the 
heels  of  the  mute  Cree  in  search  of  something. 

On  the  morning  of  the  third  day  the  old 
Indian  could  scarcely  control  himself,  so  eager 
was  he  to  be  off. 


176  JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON 

All  through  the  morning  the  white  men  fol 
lowed  him  in  silence.  Noon  came,  and  still  the 
Indian  pushed  on. 

At  two  in  the  afternoon,  rounding  the  shoulder 
of  a  bit  of  highland  overlooking  a  beautiful 
valley,  they  came  suddenly  upon  a  half-breed 
boy  playing  with  a  wild  goose  that  had  been 
tamed. 

Down  in  the  valley  a  cabin  stood,  and  over 
the  valley  a  small  drove  of  cattle  were  grazing. 

Suddenly  from  behind  the  hogan  came  the 
weird  wail  of  a  Colorado  canary,  who  would 
have  been  an  ass  in  Absalom's  time. 

They  asked  the  half-breed  boy  his  name,  and 
he  shook  his  head.  They  asked  for  his  father, 
and  he  frowned. 

The  mute  old  Indian  took  up  a  pick,  and  they 
followed  him  up  the  slope.  Presently  he  stopped 
at  a  stake  upon  which  they  could  still  read  the 
faint  pencil-marks :  — 

C.  M. 
M.  Co. 
L'T'D 

The  old  Indian  pointed  to  the  ground  with  an 
expression  which  looked  to  the  white  men  like 


JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON  177 

an  interrogation.  Cromwell  nodded,  and  the 
Indian  began  to  dig.  Cromwell  brought  a 
shovel,  and  they  began  sinking  a  shaft. 

The  English-American,  with  a  sickening,  sink 
ing  sensation,  turned  toward  the  cabin.  The 
boy  preceded  him  and  stood  in  the  door.  The 
man  put  his  hand  on  the  boy's  head  and  was 
about  to  enter  when  he  caught  sight  of  a  nug 
get  at  the  boy's  neck.  He  stooped  and  lifted  it. 
The  boy  shrank  back,  but  the  man,  going  deadly 
pale,  clutched  the  child,  dragging  the  nugget 
from  his  neck. 

Now  all  the  Indian  in  the  boy's  savage  soul 
asserted  itself,  and  he  fought  like  a  little  demon. 
Pitying  the  child  in  its  impotent  rage,  the  man 
gave  him  the  nugget  and  turned  away. 

Across  the  valley  an  Indian  woman  came 
walking  rapidly,  her  arms  full  of  turnips  and 
onions  and  other  garden-truck.  The  white  man 
looked  and  loathed  her ;  for  he  felt  confident  that 
Ramsey  had  been  murdered,  his  trinkets  distrib 
uted,  and  his  carcass  cast  to  the  wolves. 

When  the  boy  ran  to  meet  the  woman,  the 
white  man  knew  by  his  behavior  that  he  was 
her  child.  When  the  boy  had  told  his  mother 

12 


178  JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON 

how  the  white  man  had  behaved,  she  flew  into 
a  rage,  dropped  her  vegetables,  dived  into  the 
cabin,  and  came  out  with  a  rifle  in  her  hands. 
To  her  evident  surprise  the  man  seemed  not 
to  dread  death,  but  stood  staring  at  the  rifle, 
which  he  recognized  as  the  rifle  he  had  sent  to 
Ramsey.  To  his  surprise  she  did  not  shoot,  but 
uttering  a  strange  cry,  started  up  the  slope,  tak 
ing  the  gun  with  her.  With  rifle  raised  and  flash 
ing  eyes  she  ordered  the  two  men  out  of  the 
prospect  hole.  Warlike  as  she  seemed,  she  was 
more  than  welcome,  for  she  was  a  woman  and 
could  talk.  She  talked  Cree,  of  course,  but  it 
sounded  good  to  Cromwell.  Side  by  side  the 
handsome  young  athlete  and  the  Cree  woman 
sat  and  exchanged  stories. 

Half  an  hour  later  the  Englishman  came  up 
and  asked  what  the  prospect  promised. 

"Ah,"  said  Cromwell,  sadly,  "this  is  another 
story.  There  is  no  gold  in  this  vale,  though 
from  what  this  woman  tells  me  the  hills  are  full 
of  it.  However,"  he  added,  "  I  believe  we  have 
found  your  friend." 

"  Yes?  "  queried  the  capitalist. 

"Yes,"    echoed    Cromwell,     "here    are    his 


JACK  RAMSEY'S  REASON  179 

wife   and    his    child ;    and    here,    where   we  're 
grubbing,  his  grave." 

"  Quite  so,  quite  so,"  said  the  big,  warm 
hearted  English-American,  glaring  at  the  ground  ; 
"  and  that  was  Ramsey's  '  reason '  for  not 
writing." 


on 


THE   GREAT   WRECK   ON   THE   PERE 
MARQUETTE 


THE  reader  is  not  expected  to  believe  this 
red  tale  ;  but  if  he  will  take  the  trouble  to 
write  the  General  Manager  of  the  Pere  Mar- 
quette  Railroad,  State  of  Michigan,  U.  S.  A., 
enclosing  stamped  envelope  for  answer,  I  make 
no  doubt  that  good  man,  having  by  this  time 
recovered  from  the  dreadful  shock  occasioned 
by  the  wreck,  will  cheerfully  verify  the  story  even 
to  the  minutest  detail. 

Of  course  Kelly,  being  Irish,  should  have  been 
a  Democrat ;  but  he  was  not.  He  was  not  bois 
terously  or  offensively  Republican,  but  he  was 
going  to  vote  the  prosperity  ticket.  He  had 
tried  it  four  years  ago,  and  business  had  never 
been  better  on  the  Pere  Marquette.  Moreover, 
he  had  a  new  hand-car. 

The  management  had  issued  orders  to  the  ef 
fect  that  there  must  be  no  coercion  of  employees. 


184  GREA  T  IV RECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE 

It  was  pretty  well  understood  among  the  men 
that  the  higher  officials  would  vote  the  Repub 
lican  ticket  and  leave  the  little  fellows  free  to  do 
the  same.  So  Kelly,  being  boss  of  the  gang, 
could  not,  with  "  ju  "  respect  to  the  order  of 
the  Superintendent,  enter  into  the  argument 
going  on  constantly  between  Burke  and  Shea 
on  one  side  and  Lucien  Boseaux,  the  French- 
Canadian-Anglo-Saxon-Foreign-American  Citizen, 
on  the  other.  This  argument  always  reached 
its  height  at  noon-lime,  and  had  never  been 
more  heated  than  now,  it  being  the  day  be 
fore  election.  "  Here  is  prosper  tee,*'  laughed 
Lucien,  holding  up  a  half-pint  bottle  of  vin 
rouge. 

"Yes,"  Burke  retorted,  "an'  ye  have  four 
pound  of  cotton  waste  in  the  bottom  o'  that 
bucket  to  trow  the  grub  t'  the  top.  Begad,  I  'd 
vote  for  O' Bryan  wid  an  empty  pail  —  er  none 
at  all  —  before  I  'd  be  humbugged." 

"  Un  I,"  said  Lucien,  "  would  pour  Messieur 
Rousveau  vote  if  my  baskett  shall  all  the  way 
up  be  cotton." 

"  Sure  ye  would,"  said  Shea,  »'  and  ate  the 
cotton  too,  ef  your  masther  told  ye  to.  'Tis 


GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE     185 

the  likes  of  ye,  ye  bloomin'  furreighner,  that 
kapes  the  thrust  alive  in  this  country." 

When  they  were  like  to  come  to  blows,  Kelly, 
with  a  mild  show  of  superiority,  which  is 
second  nature  to  a  section  boss,  would  interfere 
and  restore  order.  All  day  they  worked  and 
argued,  lifting  low  joints  and  lowering  high 
centres  ;  and  when  the  red  sun  sank  in  the  tree- 
tops,  filtering  its  gold  through  the  golden  leaves, 
they  lifted  the  car  onto  the  rails  and  started 
home. 

When  the  men  had  mounted,  Lucien  at  the 
forward  handle  and  Burke  and  Shea  side  by 
side  on  the  rear  bar,  they  waited  impatiently  for 
Kelly  to  light  his  pipe  and  seat  himself  com 
fortably  on  the  front  of  the  car,  his  heels  hang 
ing  near  to  the  ties. 

There  was  no  more  talk  now.  The  men 
were  busy  pumping,  the  "  management "  in 
specting  the  fish-plates,  the  culverts,  and,  inci 
dentally,  watching  the  red  sun  slide  down  behind 
the  trees. 

At  the  foot  of  a  long  slope,  down  which  the 
men  had  been  pumping  with  all  their  might, 
there  was  a  short  bridge.  The  forest  was  heavy 


1 86     GREA  T  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE 

here,  and  already  the  shadow  of  the  woods 
lay  over  the  right-of-way.  As  the  car  reached 
the  farther  end  of  the  culvert,  the  men  were 
startled  by  a  great  explosion.  The  hand-car  was 
lifted  bodily  and  thrown  from  the  track. 

The  next  thing  Lucien  remembers  is  that  he 
woke  from  a  fevered  sleep,  fraught  with  bad 
dreams,  and  felt  warm  water  running  over  his 
chest.  He  put  his  hand  to  his  shirt-collar,  re 
moved  it,  and  found  it  red  with  blood.  Thor 
oughly  alarmed,  he  got  to  his  feet  and  looked, 
or  rather  felt,  himself  over.  His  fingers  found 
an  ugly  ragged  gash  in  the  side  of  his  neck,  and 
the  fear  and  horror  of  it  all  dazed  him. 

He  reeled  and  fell  again,  but  this  time  did 
not  lose  consciousness. 

Finally,  when  he  was  able  to  drag  himself  up 
the  embankment  to  where  the  car  hung  crosswise 
on  the  track,  the  sight  he  saw  was  so  appalling 
he  forgot  his  own  wounds. 

On  the  side  opposite  to  where  he  had  fallen, 
Burke  and  Shea  lay  side  by  side,  just  as  they  had 
walked  and  worked  and  fought  for  years,  and 
just  as  they  would  have  voted  on  the  morrow 


GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE     187 

had  they  been  spared.  Immediately  in  front  of 
the  car,  his  feet  over  one  rail  and  his  neck  across 
the  other,  lay  the  mortal  remains  qf  Kelly  the 
boss,  the  stub  of  his  black  pipe  still  sticking  be 
tween  his  teeth.  As  Lucien  stooped  to  lift  the 
helpless  head  his  own  blood,  spurting  from  the 
wound  in  his  neck,  flooded  the  face  and  covered 
the  clothes  of  the  limp  foreman.  Finding  no 
signs  of  life  in  the  section  boss,  the  wounded, 
and  by  this  time  thoroughly  frightened,  French- 
Canadian  turned  his  attention  to  the  other  two 
victims.  Swiftly  now  the  realization  of  the  awful 
tragedy  came  over  the  wounded  man.  His 
first  thought  was  of  the  express  now  nearly  due. 
With  a  great  effort  he  succeeded  in  placing  the 
car  on  the  rails,  and  then  began  the  work  of  load 
ing  the  dead.  Out  of  respect  for  the  office  so 
lately  filled  by  Kelly,  he  was  lifted  first  and 
placed  on  the  front  of  the  car,  his  head  pillowed 
on  Lucien's  coat.  Next  he  put  Burke  aboard, 
bleeding  profusely  the  while  ;  and  then  began  the 
greater  task  of  loading  Shea.  Shea  was  a  heavy 
man,  and  by  the  time  Lucien  had  him  aboard  he 
was  ready  to  faint  from  exhaustion  and  the  loss 
of  blood. 


1 88     GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE 

Now  he  must  pump  up  over  the  little  hill ;  for 
if  the  express  should  come  round  the  curve  and 
fall  down  the  grade,  the  hand-car  would  be  in 
greater  danger  than  ever. 

After  much  hard  work  he  gained  the  top  of 
the  hill,  the  hot  blood  spurting  from  his  neck  at 
each  fall  of  the  handle-bar,  and  went  hurrying 
down  the  long  easy  grade  to  Charlevoix. 

To  show  how  the  trifles  of  life  will  intrude  at 
the  end,  it  is  interesting  to  hear  Lucien  declare 
that  one  of  the  first  thoughts  that  came  to  him 
on  seeing  the  three  prostrate  figures  was,  that  up 
to  that  moment  the  wreck  had  worked  a  Repub 
lican  gain  of  one  vote,  with  his  own  in  doubt. 

But  now  he  had  more  serious  work  for  his 
brain,  already  reeling  from  exhaustion.  At  the 
end  of  fifteen  minutes  he  found  himself  hanging 
onto  the  handle,  more  to  keep  from  falling  than 
for  any  help  he  was  giving  the  car.  The  even 
ing  breeze  blowing  down  the  slope  helped  him, 
so  that  the  car  was  really  losing  nothing  in  speed. 
He  dared  not  relax  his  hold  ;  for  if  his  strength 
should  give  out  and  the  car  stop,  the  express 
would  come  racing  down  through  the  twilight 
and  scoop  him  into  eternity.  So  he  toiled  on, 


GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE     189 

dazed,  stupefied,  fighting  for  life,  surrounded  by 
the  dead. 

Presently  above  the  singing  of  the  wheels  he 
heard  a  low  sound,  like  a  single,  smothered  cough 
of  a  yard  engine  suddenly  reversed.  Now  he 
had  the  feeling  of  a  man  flooded  with  ice-water, 
so  chilled  was  his  blood.  Turning  his  head  to 
learn  the  cause  of  delay  (he  had  fancied  the  pilot 
of  an  engine  under  his  car),  he  saw  Burke,  one  of 
the  dead  men,  leap  up  and  glare  into  his  face. 
That  was  too  much  for  Lucien,  weak  as  he  was, 
and  twisting  slightly,  he  sank  to  the  floor  of  the 
car. 

Slowly  Burke's  wandering  reason  returned. 
Seeing  Shea  at  his  feet,  bloodless  and  apparently 
unhurt,  he  kicked  him,  gently  at  first,  and  then 
harder,  and  Shea  stood  up.  Mechanically  the 
waking  man  took  his  place  by  Burke's  side  and 
began  pumping,  Lucien  lying  limp  between 
them.  Kelly,  they  reasoned,  must  have  been 
dead  some  time,  by  the  way  he  was  pillowed. 

When  Shea  was  reasonably  sure  that  he  was 
alive,  he  looked  at  his  mate. 

"  Phat  way  ar're  ye  feelin'  ?  "  asked  Burke. 

"  Purty  good  fur  a  corpse.     How  's  yourself? " 


IQO     GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE 
"  OH,  SO-SO  !  " 

"  Th'  Lord  is  good  to  the  Irish." 

"  But  luck  ut  poor  Kelly." 

"  Tis  too  bad,"  said  Shea,  "  an'  him  dyin'  a 
Republican." 

"  Tis  the  way  a  man  lives  he  must  die." 

"  Yes,"  said  Shea,  thoughtfully,  "  thim  that 
lives  be  the  sword  must  go  be  the  board." 

When  they  had  pumped  on  silently  for  awhile. 
Shea  asked,  "  How  did  ye  load  thim,  Burke?" 

«  vvhy —  II  suppose  I  lifted  them  aboard. 
I  had  no  derrick." 

"  Did  ye  lift  me,  Burke?" 

"  I  'm  damned  if  I  know,  Shea,"  said  Burke, 
staring  ahead,  for  Kelly  had  moved.  "  Keep 
her  goin',"  he  added,  and  then  he  bent  over  the 
prostrate  foreman.  He  lifted  Kelly's  head,  and 
the  eyes  opened.  He  raised  the  head  a  little 
higher,  and  Kelly  saw  the  blood  upon  his  beard, 
on  his  coat,  on  his  hands. 

"  Are  yez  hurted,  Kelly?  "  he  asked. 
"  Hurted  !    Man,  I  'm  dyin'.      Can't  you  see 
me  heart's  blood  ebbin'  over  me?"    And  then 
Burke,  crossing  himself,  laid  the  wounded  head 
gently  down  again. 


GREAT  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE  191 

By  this  time  they  were  nearing  their  destina 
tion.  Burke,  seeing  Lucien  beyond  human  aid, 
took  hold  again  and  helped  pump,  hoping  to 
reach  Charlevoix  in  time  to  secure  medical  aid, 
or  a  priest  at  least,  for  Kelly. 

When  the  hand-car  stopped  in  front  of  the 
station  at  Charlevoix,  the  employees  watching, 
and  the  prospective  passengers  waiting,  for  the 
express  train  gathered  about  the  car. 

"  Get  a  docther ! "  shouted  Burke,  as  the 
crowd  closed  in  on  them. 

In  a  few  moments  a  man  with  black  whiskers, 
a  small  hand-grip,  and  bicycle  trousers  panted  up 
to  the  crowd  and  pushed  his  way  to  the  car. 

"  What 's  up?"  he  asked ;  for  he  was  the  com 
pany's  surgeon. 

"  Well,  there 's  wan  dead,  wan  dying,  and 
we  're  all  more  or  less  kilt,"  said  Shea,  pushing 
the  mob  back  to  give  the  doctor  room. 

Lifting  Lucien's  head,  the  doctor  held  a  small 
bottle  under  his  nose,  and  the  wounded  man  came 
out.  Strong,  and  the  reporter  would  say  u  will 
ing  hands, "  now  lifted  the  car  bodily  from  the 
track  and  put  it  down  on  the  platform  near  the 
baggage-room. 


192  GKEA  T  WRECK  ON  THE  PERE  MARQUETTE 

When  the  doctor  had  revived  the  French- 
Canadian  and  stopped  the  flow  of  blood,  he  took 
the  boss  in  hand.  Opening  the  man's  clothes, 
he  searched  for  the  wound,  but  found  none. 

They  literally  stripped  Kelly  to  the  waist ;  but 
there  was  not  a  scratch  to  be  found  upon  his 
body.  When  the  doctor  declared  it  to  be  his 
opinion  that  Kelly  was  not  hurt  at  all,  but  had 
merely  fainted,  Kelly  was  indignant. 

Of  course  the  whole  accident  (Lucien  being 
seriously  hurt)  had  to  be  investigated,  and  this 
was  the  finding  of  the  experts  :  — 

A  tin  torpedo  left  on  the  rail  by  a  flagman 
was  exploded  by  the  wheel  of  the  hand-car. 
A  piece  of  tin  flew  up,  caught  Lucien  in  the 
neck,  making  a  nasty  wound.  Lucien  was  thrown 
from  the  car,  when  it  jumped  the  track,  so 
violently  as  to  render  him  unconscious.  Kelly 
and  Burke  and  Shea,  picking  themselves  up, 
one  after  the  other,  each  fainted  dead  away  at 
the  sight  of  so  much  blood. 

Lucien  revived  first,  took  in  the  situation, 
loaded  the  limp  bodies,  and  pulled  for  home, 
and  that  is  the  true  story  of  the  awful  wreck  on 
the  Pere  Marquette. 


of  an  CDngltefyman 


THE   STORY   OF   AN   ENGLISHMAN 


A  YOUNG  Englishman  stood  watching  a 
freight  train  pulling  out  of  a  new  town,, 
over  a  new  track.  A  pinch-bar,  left  carelessly 
by  a  section  gang,  caught  in  the  cylinder-cock 
rigging  and  tore  it  off. 

Swearing  softly,  the  driver  climbed  down  and 
began  the  nasty  work  of  disconnecting  the  dis 
abled  machinery.  He  was  not  a  machinist. 
Not  all  engine-drivers  can  put  a  locomotive  to 
gether.  In  fact  the  best  runners  are  just  runners. 
The  Englishman  stood  by  and,  when  he  saw 
the  man  fumble  his  wrench,  offered  a  hand.  The 
driver,  with  some  hesitation,  gave  him  the  tools, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  the  crippled  rigging  was 
taken  down,  nuts  replaced,  and  the  rigging  passed 
by  the  Englishman  to  the  fireman,  who  threw  it 
up  on  the  rear  of  the  tank. 

"  Are  you  a  mechanic  ?  "  asked  the  driver. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  the  Englishman,  standing  at 


196          THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

least  a  foot  above  the  engineer.  "  There  's  a  job 
for  me  up  the  road,  if  I  can  get  there." 

'*'  And  you  're  out  of  tallow?  " 

The  Englishman  was  not  quite  sure ;  but 
he  guessed  "  tallow "  was  United  States  for 
"money,"  and  said  he  was  short. 

"  All  right,"  said  the  engine-driver ;  "  climb 
on." 

The  fireman  was  a  Dutchman  named  Martin, 
and  he  made  the  Englishman  comfortable ;  but 
the  Englishman  wanted  to  work.  He  wanted  to 
help  fire  the  engine,  and  Martin  showed  him  how 
to  do  it,  taking  her  himself  on  the  hills.  When 
they  pulled  into  the  town  of  E.,  the  Englishman 
went  over  to  the  round-house  and  the  foreman 
asked  him  if  he  had  ever  "  railroaded."  He 
said  No,  but  he  was  a  machinist.  "  Well,  I  don't 
want  you,"  said  the  foreman,  and  the  English 
man  went  across  to  the  little  eating-stand  where 
the  trainmen  were  having  dinner.  Martin  moved 
over  and  made  room  for  the  stranger  between 
himself  and  his  engineer. 

"  What  luck  ?  "  asked  the  latter. 

"  Hard  luck,"  was  the  answer,  and  without 
more  talk  the  men  hurried  on  through  the  meal. 


THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN         197 

They  had  to  eat  dinner  and  do  an  hour's 
switching  in  twenty  minutes.  That  is  an  easy 
trick  when  nobody  is  looking.  You  arrive,  eat 
dinner,  then  register  in.  That  is  the  first  the 
despatcher  hears  of  you  at  E.  You  switch 
twenty  minutes  and  register  out.  That  is  the 
last  the  despatcher  hears  of  you  at  E.  You 
switch  another  twenty  minutes  and  go.  That  is 
called  stealing  time  ;  and  may  the  Manager  have 
mercy  on  you  if  you  're  caught  at  it,  for  you  've 
got  to  make  up  that  last  twenty  minutes  before 
you  hit  the  next  station. 

As  the  engineer  dropped  a  little  oil  here  and 
there  for  another  dash,  the  Englishman  came  up  to 
the  engine.  He  could  not  bring  himself  to  ask  the 
driver  for  another  ride,  and  he  did  n't  need  to. 

"  You  don't  get  de  jobs?  "  asked  Martin. 

"No." 

"  Veil,  dat  's  all  right ;  you  run  his  railroad 
some  day." 

"  I  don't  like  the  agent  here,"  said  the  driver  ; 
"  but  if  you  were  up  at  the  other  end  of  the  yard, 
over  on  the  left-hand  side,  he  could  n't  see  you, 
and  I  could  n't  see  you  for  the  steam  from  that 
broken  cylinder-cock." 


igS          THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

Now  they  say  an  Englishman  is  slow  to  catch 
on,  but  this  one  was  not ;  and  as  the  engine 
rattled  over  the  last  switch,  he  climbed  into  the 
cab  in  a  cloud  of  steam.  Martin  made  him 
welcome  again,  pointing  to  a  seat  on  the  waste- 
box.  The  dead-head  took  off  his  coat,  folded 
it  carefully,  laid  it  on  the  box,  and  reached  for 
the  shovel.  "  Not  yet,"  said  Martin,  "  dare  is 
holes  already  in  de  fire  ;  I  must  get  dose  yello 
smoke  from  de  shtack  off." 

The  dead-head  leaned  from  the  window, 
watching  the  stack  burn  clear,  then  Martin  gave 
him  the  shovel.  Half-way  up  a  long,  hard  hill 
the  pointer  on  the  steam-gauge  began  to  go  back. 
The  driver  glanced  over  at  Martin,  and  Martin 
took  the  shovel.  The  dead-head  climbed  up  on 
the  tank  and  shovelled  the  coal  down  into  the 
pit,  that  was  now  nearly  empty.  In  a  little  while 
they  pulled  into  the  town  of  M.  C.,  Iowa,  at  the 
crossing  of  the  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  St. 
Paul.  Here  the  Englishman  had  to  change  cars. 
His  destination  was  on  the  cross-road,  still  one 
hundred  and  eighteen  miles  away.  The  engine- 
driver  took  the  joint  agent  to  one  side,  the  agent 
wrote  on  a  small  piece  of  paper,  folded  it  care- 


THE  STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN         199 

fully,  and  gave  it  to  the  Englishman.  "  This  may 
help  you,"  said  he;  "be  quick  —  they're  just 
pulling  out  —  run  !  " 

Panting,  the  Englishman  threw  himself  into  a 
way-car  that  was  already  making  ten  miles  an 
hour.  The  train  official  unfolded  the  paper, 
read  it,  looked  the  Englishman  over,  and  said, 
"All  right." 

It  was  nearly  night  when  the  train  arrived  at 
W.,  and  the  dead-head  followed  the  train  crew 
into  an  unpainted  pine  hotel,  where  all  hands  fell 
eagerly  to  work.  A  man  stood  behind  a  little 
high  desk  at  the  door  taking  money ;  but  when 
the  Englishman  offered  to  pay  he  said,  "  Yours 
is  paid  fer." 

"  Not  mine  ;  nobody  knows  me  here." 

"Then,  'f  the  devil  don't  know  you  better 
than  I  do  you're  lost,  young  man,"  said  the 
landlord.  "  But  some  one  p'inted  to  you  and 
said,  '  I  pay  fer  him.'  It  ain't  a  thing  to  make  a 
noise  about.  It  don't  make  no  difference  to  me 
whether  it 's  Tom  or  Jerry  that  pays,  so  long  as 
everybody  represents." 

"  Well,  this  is  a  funny  country,"  mused  the 
Englishman,  as  he  strolled  over  to  the  shop. 


200          THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

Now  when  he  heard  the  voice  of  the  foreman, 
with  its  musical  burr,  which  stamped  the  man 
as  a  Briton  from  the  Highlands,  his  heart  grew 
glad.  The  Scotchman  listened  to  the  stranger's 
story  without  any  sign  of  emotion  or  even  in 
terest  ;  and  when  he  learned  that  the  man  had 
"  never  railroaded,"  but  had  been  all  his  life  in 
the  British  Government  service,  he  said  he  could 
do  nothing  for  him,  and  walked  away. 

The  young  man  sat  and  thought  it  over,  and 
concluded  he  would  see  the  master-mechanic. 
On  the  following  morning  he  found  that  official 
at  his  desk  and  told  his  story.  He  had  just 
arrived  from  England  with  a  wife  and  three  chil 
dren  and  a  few  dollars.  "  That 's  all  right," 
said  the  master-mechanic  ;  "  I  Ml  give  you  a  job 
on  Monday  morning." 

This  was  Saturday,  and  during  the  day  the 
first  foreman  with  whom  the  Englishman  had 
talked  wired  that  if  he  would  return  to  E.  he 
could  find  work.  The  young  man  showed  this 
wire  to  the  master-mechanic.  "  I  should  like 
to  work  for  you/'  said  he;  "you  have  been 
very  kind  to  give  me  employment  after  the  fore 
man  had  refused,  but  my  family  is  near  this 


THE   S TOR  Y  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN          2 O  I 

place.  They  are  two  hundred  miles  or  more 
from  here." 

"  I  understand,"  said  the  kind-hearted  official, 
"  and  you  'd  better  go  back  to  E." 

The  Englishman  rubbed  his  chin  and  looked 
out  of  the  window.  The  train  standing  at  the 
station  and  about  to  pull  out  would  carry  him 
back  to  the  junction,  but  he  made  no  effort  to 
catch  it,  and  the  master-mechanic,  seeing  this, 
caught  the  drift  of  the  young  man's  mind. 
"Have  you  transportation?"  he  asked.  The 
stranger,  smiling,  shook  his  head.  Turning  to 
his  desk,  the  master-mechanic  wrote  a  pass  to 
the  junction  and  a  telegram  requesting  transpor 
tation  over  the  Iowa  Central  from  the  junction 
to  the  town  of  E. 

That  Sunday  the  young  man  told  his  young 
wife  that  the  new  country  was  "all  right." 
Everybody  trusted  everybody  else.  An  official 
would  give  a  stranger  free  transportation ;  a 
station  agent  could  give  you  a  pass,  and  even 
an  engine-driver  could  carry  a  man  without 
asking  permission. 

He  didn't  know  that  all  these  men  save  the 
master-mechanic  had  violated  the  rules  of  the 


202          THE  STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

road  and  endangered  their  own  positions  and 
the  chance  of  promotion  by  helping  him ;  but 
he  felt  he  was  among  good,  kind  people,  and 
thanked  them  just  the  same. 

On  Monday  morning  he  went  to  work  in  the 
little  shop.  In  a  little  while  he  was  one  of  the 
trustworthy  men  employed  in  the  place.  "  How 
do  you  square  a  locomotive?"  he  asked  the 
foreman.  "Here,"  said  the  foreman ;'"  from 
this  point  to  that." 

That  was  all  the  Englishman  asked.  He 
stretched  a  line  between  the  given  points  and 
went  to  work. 

Two  years  from  this  the  town  of  M.  offered  to 
donate  to  the  railroad  company  $47,000  if  the 
new  machine  shop  could  be  located  there,  steam 
up  and  machinery  running,  on  the  first  day  of 
January  of  the  following  year. 

The  general  master  mechanic  entrusted  the 
work  of  putting  in  the  machinery,  after  the  walls 
had  been  built  and  the  place  roofed  over,  to  the 
division  master-mechanic,  who  looked  to  the 
local  foreman  to  finish  the  job  in  time  to  win 
the  subsidy. 

The  best  months  of  the  year  went  by  before 


THE   STORY  OF  AX  ENGLISHMAN         203 

work  was  begun.  Frost  came,  and  the  few  men 
tinkering  about  were  chilled  by  the  autumn 
winds  that  were  wailing  through  the  shutterless 
doors  and  glassless  windows.  Finally  the  fore 
man  sent  the  Englishman  to  M.  to  help  put  up 
the  machinery.  He  was  a  new  man,  and  there 
fore  was  expected  to  take  signals  from  the  oldest 
man  on  the  job,  —  a  sort  of  straw-boss. 

The  bridge  boss  —  the  local  head  of  the  wood 
workers —  found  the  Englishman  gazing  about, 
and  the  two  men  talked  together.  There  was  no 
foreman  there,  but  the  Englishman  thought  he 
ought  to  work  anyway ;  so  he  and  the  wood 
boss  stretched  a  line  for  a  line-shaft,  and  while 
the  carpenter's  gang  put  up  braces  and  brackets 
the  Englishman  coupled  the  shaft  together,  and 
in  a  few  days  it  was  ready  to  go  up.  As  the 
young  man  worked  and  whistled  away  one 
morning,  the  boss  carpenter  came  in  with  a 
military-looking  gentleman,  who  seemed  to  own 
the  place.  "  Where  did  you  come  from?  "  asked 
the  new-comer  of  the  machinist. 

"  From  England,  sir." 

4 'Well,  anybody  could  tell  that.  Where  did 
you  come  from  when  you  came  here  ?  " 


204          THE   STOKV  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

"From  E." 

"  Well,  sir,  can  you  finish  this  job  and  have 
steam  up  here  on  the  first  of  January?" 

The  Englishman  blushed,  for  he  was  embar 
rassed,  and  glanced  at  the  wood  boss.  Then, 
sweeping  the  almost  empty  shop  with  his  eye, 
he  said  something  about  a  foreman  who  was  in 
charge  of  the  work.  "  Damn  the  foreman,"  said 
the  stranger ;  "  I  'm  talking  to  you." 

The  young  man  blushed  again,  and  said  he 
could  work  twelve  or  fourteen  hours  a  day  for  a 
time  if  it  were  necessary,  but  he  did  n't  like  to 
make  any  rash  promises  about  the  general  result. 

"  Now  look  here,"  said  the  well-dressed  man, 
"  I  want  you  to  take  charge  of  this  job  and  finish 
it ;  employ  as  many  men  as  you  can  handle,  and 
blow  a  whistle  here  on  New  Year's  morning  — 
do  you  understand  ?  " 

The  Englishman  thought  he  did,  but  he  could 
hardly  believe  it.  He  glanced  at  the  wood  boss, 
and  the  wood  boss  nodded  his  head. 

"  I  shall  do  my  best,"  said  the  Englishman, 
taking  courage,  "but  I  should  like  to  know  who 
gives  these  orders." 

"  I  'm  the  General  Manager,"  said  the  man  ; 


THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN         205 

"  now  get  a  move  on  you,"  and  he  turned  and 
walked  out. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  General 
Manager  saw  anything  remarkable  about  the 
young  man,  save  that  he  was  six  feet  and  had 
a  good  face.  The  fact  is,  the  wood  foreman  had 
boomed  the  Englishman's  stock  before  the  Man 
ager  saw  him.] 

The  path  of  the  Englishman  was  not  strewn 
with  flowers  for  the  next  few  months.  Any  num 
ber  of  men  who  had  been  on  the  road  when  he  was 
in  the  English  navy-yards  felt  that  they  ought 
to  have  had  this  little  promotion.  The  local 
foremen  along  the  line  saw  in  the  young  English 
man  the  future  foreman  of  the  new  shops,  and 
no  man  went  out  of  his  way  to  help  the  stranger. 
But  in  spite  of  all  obstacles,  the  shop  grew  from 
day  to  day,  from  week  to  week ;  so  that  as  the 
old  year  drew  to  a  close  the  machinery  was  get 
ting  into  place.  The  young  foreman,  while  a 
hard  worker,  was  always  pleasant  in  his  inter 
course  with  the  employees,  and  in  a  little  while 
he  had  hosts  of  friends.  There  is  always  a  lot 
of  extra  work  at  the  end  of  a  big  job,  and  now 
when  Christmas  came  there  was  still  much  to  do. 


206          THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

The  men  worked  night  and  day.  The  boiler 
that  was  to  come  from  Chicago  had  been  ex 
pected  for  some  time.  Everything  was  in  readi 
ness,  and  it  could  be  set  up  in  a  day  ;  but  it  did 
not  come.  Tracer-letters  that  had  gone  after  it 
were  followed  by  telegrams  ;  finally  it  was  located 
in  a  wreck  out  in  a  cornfield  in  Illinois  on  the 
last  day  of  the  year. 

A  great  many  of  the  officials  were  away,  and 
the  service  was  generally  demoralized  during  the 
holidays,  so  that  the  appropriation  for  which 
the  Englishman  was  working  at  M.  had  for  the 
moment  been  forgotten ;  the  shops  were  com 
pleted,  the  machinery  was  in,  but  there  was-  no 
boiler  to  boil  water  to  make  steam. 

That  night,  when  the  people  of  M.  were  watch 
ing  the  old  year  out  and  the  new  year  in,  the 
young  Englishman  with  a  force  of  men  was 
wrecking  the  pump-house  down  by  the  station. 
The  little  upright  boiler  was  torn  out  and  placed 
in  the  machine  shops,  and  with  it  a  little  engine 
was  driven  that  turned  the  long  line-shaft. 

At  dawn  they  ran  a  long  pipe  through  the  roof, 
screwed  a  locomotive  whistle  on  the  top  of  it,  anil 
at  six  o'clock  on  New  Year's  morning  the  new 


THE  STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN         207 

whistle  on  the  new  shops  at  M.  in  Iowa,  blew  in 
the  new  year.  Incidentally,  it  blew  the  town  in 
for  $47,000. 

This  would  be  a  good  place  to  end  this  story, 
but  the  temptation  is  great  to  tell  the  rest. 

When  the  shops  were  opened,  the  young 
Englishman  was  foreman.  This  was  only  about 
twenty-five  years  ago.  In  a  little  while  they  pro 
moted  him. 

In  1887  he  went  to  the  Wisconsin  Central. 
In  1890  he  was  made  Superintendent  of  machin 
ery  of  the  Santa  Fe  route,  —  one  of  the  longest 
roads  on  earth.  It  begins  at  Chicago,  strong  like 
a  man's  wrist,  with  a  finger  each  on  Sacramento, 
San  Francisco,  San  Diego,  and  El  Paso,  and  a 
thumb  touching  the  Gulf  at  Galveston. 

The  mileage  of  the  system,  at  that  time,  was 
equal  to  one-half  that  of  Great  Britain ;  and  upon 
the  companies'  payrolls  were  ten  thousand  more 
men  than  were  then  in  the  army  of  the  United 
States.  Fifteen  hundred  men  and  boys  walk 
into  the  main  shops  at  Topeka  every  morning. 
They  work  four  hours,  eat  luncheon,  listen  to 
a  lecture  or  short  sermon  in  the  meeting-place 
above  the  shops,  work  another  four  hours,  and 


2o8          THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN 

walk  out  three  thousand  dollars  better  off  than 
they  would  have  been  if  they  had  not  worked. 

These  shops  make  a  little  city  of  themselves. 
There  is  a  perfect  water  system,  fire-brigade  with 
fire  stations  where  the  firemen  sleep,  police,  and 
a  dog-catcher. 

Here  they  build  anything  of  wood,  iron,  brass, 
or  steel  that  the  company  needs,  from  a  ninety- 
ton  locomotive  to  a  single-barrelled  mouse-trap, 
all  under  the  eye  of  the  Englishman  who  came  to 
America  with  a  good  wife  and  three  babies,  a  good 
head  and  two  hands.  This  man's  name  is  John 
Player.  He  is  the  inventor  of  the  Player  truck, 
the  Player  hand-car,  the  Player  frog,  and  many 
other  useful  appliances. 

This  simple  story  of  an  unpretentious  man 
came  out  in  broken  sections  as  the  special  sped 
along  the  smooth  track,  while  the  General 
Manager  talked  with  the  resident  director  and 
the  General  Superintendent  talked  with  his  as 
sistant,  who,  not  long  ago,  was  the  conductor  of 
a  work-train  upon  which  the  G.  S.  was  employed 
as  brakeman.  I  was  two  days  stealing  this 
story,  between  the  blushes  of  the  mechanical 
Superintendent. 


THE   STORY  OF  AN  ENGLISHMAN         209 

He  related,  also,  that  a  man  wearing  high-cut 
trousers  and  milk  on  his  boot  had  entered  his 
office  when  he  had  got  to  his  first  position  as 
master-mechanic  and  held  out  a  hand,  smiling, 
"Veil,  you  don't  know  me  yet,  ain't  it?  I'm 
Martin  the  fireman ;  I  quit  ranchin'  already,  an' 
I  want  a  jobs." 

Martin  got  a  job  at  once.  He  got  killed,  also, 
in  a  little  while  ;  but  that  is  part  of  the  business 
on  a  new  road. 

Near  the  shops  at  Topeka  stands  the  rail 
road  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  build 
ing.  They  were  enlarging  it  when  I  was  there. 
There  are  no  "saloons"  in  Kansas,  so  Player 
and  his  company  help  the  men  to  provide  other 
amusements. 


tlje 


ON    THE    LIMITED 


ONE  Sabbath  evening,  not  long  ago,  I  went 
down  to  the  depot  in  an  Ontario  town  to 
take  the  International  Limited  for  Montreal. 
She  was  on  the  blackboard  five  minutes  in  dis 
grace.  "  Huh  !  "  grunted  a  commercial  traveller. 
It  was  Sunday  in  the  aforesaid  Ontario  town, 
and  would  be  Sunday  in  Toronto,  toward  which 
he  was  travelling.  Even  if  we  were  on  time  we 
should  not  arrive  until  9.30  —  too  late  for  church, 
too  early  to  go  to  bed,  and  the  saloons  all  closed 
and  barred.  And  yet  this  restless  traveller  fretted 
and  grieved  because  we  promised  to  get  into 
Toronto  five  minutes  late.  Alas  for  the  calcu 
lation  of  the  train  despatchers,  she  was  seven 
minutes  overdue  when  she  swept  in  and  stood 
for  us  to  mount.  The  get-away  was  good,  but 
at  the  eastern  yard  limits  we  lost  again.  The 
people  from  the  Pullmans  piled  into  the  cafe  car 
and  overflowed  into  the  library  and  parlor  cars. 


214 

The  restless  traveller  snapped  his  watch  again 
caught  the  sleeve  of  a  passing  trainman,  and 
asked  "  'S  matter  ?  "  and  the  conductor  answered, 
"  Waiting  for  No.  5."  Five  minutes  passed  and 
not  a  wheel  turned  ;  six,  eight,  ten  minutes,  and 
no  sound  of  the  coming  west-bound  express. 
Up  ahead  we  could  hear  the  flutter  and  flap  of 
the  blow-off;  for  the  black  flier  was  as  restless 
as  the  fat  drummer  who  was  snapping  his  watch, 
grunting  "Huh,"  and  washing  suppressed  pro 
fanity  down  with  cafe  noir. 

Eighteen  minutes  and  No.  5  passed.  When 
the  great  black  steed  of  steam  got  them  swing 
ing  again  we  were  twenty-five  minutes  to  the 
bad.  And  how  that  driver  did  hit  the  curves  ! 
The  impatient  traveller  snapped  his  watch  again 
and  said,  refusing  to  be  comforted,  "  She  '11 
never  make  it." 

Mayhap  the  fat  and  fretful  drummer  man 
aged  to  communicate  with  the  engine-driver,  or 
maybe  the  latter  was  unhappily  married  or  had  an 
insurance  policy  ;  and  it  is  also  possible  that  he 
is  just  the  devil  to  drive.  Anyway,  he  whipped 
that  fine  train  of  Pullmans,  cafe,  and  parlor  cars 
through  those  peaceful,  lamplighted,  Sabbath- 


ON   THE   LIMITED 


215 


keeping  Ontario  towns  as  though  the  whole 
show  had  cost  not  more  than  seven  dollars,  and 
his  own  life  less. 

On  a  long  lounge  in  the  library  car  a  well- 
nourished  lawyer  lay  sleeping  in  a  way  that  I  had 
not  dreamed  a  political  lawyer  could  sleep. 
One  gamey  M.  P.  —  double  P,  I  was  told  — 
had  been  robbing  this  same  lawyer  of  a  good 
deal  of  rest  recently,  and  he  was  trying  at  a 
mile  a  minute  to  catch  up  with  his  sleep.  I 
could  feel  the  sleeper  slam  her  flanges  against 
the  ball  of  the  rail  as  we  rounded  the  perfectly 
pitched  curves,  and  the  little  semi-quaver  that 
tells  the  trained  traveller  that  the  man  up  ahead 
is  moving  the  mile-posts,  at  least  one  every 
minute.  At  the  first  stop,  twenty-five  miles  out, 
the  fat  drummer  snapped  his  watch  again,  but 
he  did  not  say,  "  Huh."  We  had  made  up  five 
minutes. 

A  few  passengers  swung  down  here,  and  a  few 
others  swung  up  ;  and  off  we  dashed,  drilling  the 
darkness.  I  looked  in  on  the  lawyer  again,  for 
I  would  have  speech  with  him ;  but  he  was 
still  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the  virtuous,  with  the 
electric  light  full  on  his  upturned  baby  face, 


2l6  ON  THE   LIMITED 


that  reminds  me  constantly  of  the  late  Tom 
Reed. 

A  woman  I  know  was  putting  one  of  her 
babies  to  bed  in  lower  2,  when  we  wiggled 
through  a  reverse  curve  that  was  like  shooting 
White  Horse  Rapids  in  a  Peterboro.  The  child 
intended  for  lower  2  went  over  into  4. 
"  Never  mind,"  said  its  mother,  "  we  have 
enough  to  go  around  ; "  and  so  she  left  that  one 
in  4  and  put  the  next  one  in  2,  and  so  on. 

At  the  next  stop  where  you  "  Y  "  and  back 
into  the  town,  the  people,  impatient,  were  lined 
up,  ready  to  board  the  Limited.  When  we 
swung  over  the  switches  again,  we  were  only 
ten  minutes  late. 

As  often  as  the  daring  driver  eased  off  for  a 
down  grade  I  could  hear  the  hiss  of  steam 
through  the  safety-valve  above  the  back  of  the 
black  flier,  and  I  could  feel  the  flanges  against 
the  ball  of  the  rail,  and  the  little  tell-tale  semi 
quaver  of  the  car. 

By  now  the  babies  were  all  abed  ;  and  from 
bunk  to  bunk  she  tucked  them  in,  kissed  them 
good-night,  and  then  cuddled  down  beside  the 
last  one,  a  fair-haired  girl  who  seemed  to  have 


ON   THE   LIMITED 


caught  and  kept,  in  her  hair  and  in  her  eyes, 
the  sunshine  of  the  three  short  summers  through 
which  she  had  passed. 

Once  more  I  went  and  stood  by  the  lounge 
where  the  lawyer  lay,  but  I  had  not  the  nerve  to 
wake  him. 

The  silver  moon  rose  and  lit  the  ripples  on 
the  lake  that  lay  below  my  window  as  the  last 
of  the  diners  came  from  the  cafe  car.  Along 
the  shore  of  the  sleeping  lake  our  engine  swept 
like  a  great,  black,  wingless  bird  of  night.  Pres 
ently  I  felt  the  frogs  of  South  Parkdale  ;  and 
when,  from  her  hot  throat  she  called  "  Toronto," 
the  fat  and  fretful  traveller  opened  his  great  gold 
watch.  He  did  not  snap  it  now,  but  looked 
into  its  open  face  and  almost  smiled  ;  for  we 
were  touching  Toronto  on  the  tick  of  time. 

I  stepped  from  the  car,  for  I  was  interested 
in  the  fat  drummer.  I  wanted  to  see  him  meet 
her,  and  hold  her  hand,  and  tell  her  what  a 
really,  truly,  good  husband  he  had  been,  and 
how  he  had  hurried  home.  As  he  came  down 
the  short  stair  a  friend  faced  him  and  said 
"  Good-night,"  where  we  say  "  Good-evening." 
"Hello,  Bill,"  said  the  fat  drummer.  They 


2l8  ON   THE  LIMITED 

shook  hands  languidly.  The  fat  man  yawned 
and  asked,  "  Anything  doing  ? "  "  Not  the 
littlest,"  said  Bill.  "Then,"  said  Jim  (the  fat 
man),  "  let  us  go  up  to  the  King  Edward,  sit 
down,  and  have  a  good,  quiet  smoke." 


Conquest  of 


THE   CONQUEST   OF   ALASKA 


IMMEDIATELY  under  the  man  with  the 
money,  who  lived  in  London,  there  was  the 
President  in  Chicago ;  then  came  the  chief 
engineer  in  Seattle,  the  locating  engineer  in 
Skagway,  the  contractor  in  the  grading  camp, 
and  Hugh  Foy,  the  "  boss "  of  the  builders. 
Yet  in  spite  of  all  this  overhanging  stratifica 
tion,  Foy  was  a  big  man.  To  be  sure,  none  of 
these  men  had  happened  to  get  their  positions 
by  mere  chance.  They  were  men  of  character 
and  fortitude,  capable  of  great  sacrifice. 

Mr.  Close,  in  London,  knew  that  his  partner, 
Mr.  Graves,  in  Chicago,  would  be  a  good  man 
at  the  head  of  so  cold  and  hopeless  an  enter 
prise  as  a  Klondike  Railway ;  and  Mr.  Graves 
knew  that  Erastus  Corning  Hawkins,  who  had 
put  through  some  of  the  biggest  engineering 
schemes  in  the  West,  was  the  man  to  build  the 
road.  The  latter  selected,  as  locating  engineer, 


222       THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

John  Hislop,  the  hero,  one  of  the  few  survivors 
of  that  wild  and  daring  expedition  that  under 
took,  some  twenty  years  ago,  to  survey  a  route 
for  a  railroad  whose  trains  were  to  traverse  the 
Grand  Canon  of  Colorado,  where,  save  for  the 
song  of  the  cataract,  there  is  only  shade  and 
silence  and  perpetual  starlight.  Heney,  a  wiry, 
compact,  plucky  Canadian  contractor,  made  oral 
agreement  with  the  chief  engineer  and,  with 
Hugh  Foy  as  his  superintendent  of  construction, 
began  to  grade  what  they  called  the  White  Pass 
and  Yukon  Railway.  Beginning  where  the  bone- 
washing  Skagway  tells  her  troubles  to  the  tide 
waters  at  the  elbow  of  that  beautiful  arm  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean  called  Lynn  Canal,  they  graded 
out  through  the  scattered  settlement  where  a 
city  stands  to-day,  cut  through  a  dense  forest  of 
spruce,  and  began  to  climb  the  hill. 

When  the  news  of  ground-breaking  had  gone 
out  to  Seattle  and  Chicago,  and  thence  to  Lon 
don,  conservative  capitalists,  who  had  suspected 
Close  Brothers  and  Company  and  all  their 
associates  in  this  wild  scheme  of  temporary  in 
sanity,  concluded  that  the  sore  affliction  had 
come  to  stay.  But  the  dauntless  builders  on 


THE    CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  22 3 

the  busy  field  where  the  grading  camp  was  in 
action  kept  grubbing  and  grading,  climbing  and 
staking,  blasting  and  building,  undiscouraged 
and  undismayed.  Under  the  eaves  of  a  drip 
ping  glacier,  Hawkins,  Hislop,  and  Heney  crept  j 
and,  as  they  measured  off  the  miles  and  fixed 
the  grade  by  blue  chalk-marks  where  stakes 
could  not  be  driven,  Foy  followed  with  his  army 
of  blasters  and  builders.  When  the  pathfinders 
came  to  a  deep  side  canon,  they  tumbled  down, 
clambered  up  on  the  opposite  side,  found  their 
bearings,  and  began  again.  At  one  place  the 
main  wall  was  so  steep  that  the  engineer  was 
compelled  to  climb  to  the  top,  let  a  man  down 
by  a  rope,  so  that  he  could  mark  the  face  of  the 
cliff  for  the  blasters,  and  then  haul  him  up  again. 
It  was  springtime  when  they  began,  and 
through  the  long  days  of  that  short  summer  the 
engineers  explored  and  mapped  and  located ; 
and  ever,  close  behind  them,  they  could  hear 
the  steady  roar  of  Foy's  fireworks  as  the  skilled 
blasters  burst  big  boulders  or  shattered  the 
shoulders  of  great  crags  that  blocked  the  trail  of 
the  iron  horse.  Ever  and  anon,  when  the  climb 
ers  and  builders  peered  down  into  the  ragged 


224       THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

canon,  they  saw  a  long  line  of  pack-animals, 
bipeds  and  quadrupeds,  —  some  hoofed  and 
some  horned,  some  bleeding,  some  blind,  — 
stumbling  and  staggering,  fainting  and  falling, 
the  fittest  fighting  for  the  trail  and  gaining  the 
summit,  whence  the  clear,  green  waters  of  the 
mighty  Yukon  would  carry  them  down  to  Daw- 
son,  —  the  Mecca  of  all  these  gold-mad  men. 
As  often  as  the  road-makers  glanced  at  the 
pack-trains,  they  saw  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars'  worth  of  traffic  going  past  or  waiting 
transportation  at  Skagway,  and  each  strained 
every  nerve  to  complete  the  work  while  the 
sun  shone. 

By  midsummer  they  began  to  appreciate  the 
fact  that  this  was  to  be  a  hard  job.  When  the 
flowers  faded  on  the  southern  slopes,  they  were 
not  more  than  half-way  up  the  hill.  Each  day 
the  sun  swung  lower  across  the  canals,  all  the 
to-morrows  were  shorter  than  the  yesterdays, 
and  there  was  not  a  man  among  them  with  a 
shade  of  sentiment,  or  a  sense  of  the  beautiful, 
but  sighed  when  the  flowers  died.  Yes,  they 
had  learned  to  love  this  maiden,  Summer,  that 
had  tripped  up  from  the  south,  smiled  on  them, 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  22$ 

sung  for  a  season,  sighed,  smiled  once  more, 
and  then  danced  down  the  Lynn  again. 

"  I  '11  come  back/'  she  seemed  to  say,  peep 
ing  over  the  shoulder  of  a  glacier  that  stood  at 
the  stage  entrance ;  "  I  '11  come  back,  but  ere 
I  come  again  there  '11  be  strange  scenes  and 
sounds  on  this  rude  stage  so  new  to  you.  First, 
you  will  have  a  short  season  of  melodrama  by 
a  melancholy  chap  called  Autumn,  gloriously 
garbed  in  green  and  gold,  with  splashes  and 
dashes  of  lavender  and  lace,  but  sad,  sweetly 
sad,  and  sighing  always,  for  life  is  such  a  little 
while." 

With  a  sadder  smile,  she  kissed  her  rosy 
fingers  and  was  gone,  —  gone  with  her  gorgeous 
garments,  her  ferns  and  flowers,  her  low,  soft 
sighs  and  sunny  skies,  and  there  was  not  a  man 
that  was  a  man  but  missed  her  when  she  was 
gone. 

The  autumn  scene,  though  sombre  and  sad, 
was  far  from  depressing,  but  they  all  felt  the 
change.  John  Hislop  seemed  to  feel  it  more 
than  all  the  rest ;  for  besides  being  deeply  re 
ligious,  he  was  deeply  in  love.  His  nearest  and 
dearest  friend,  Heney  —  happy,  hilarious  Heney 
15 


226  THE   CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

—  knew,  and  he  swore  softly  whenever  a  steamer 
landed  without  a  message  from  Minneapolis,  — 
the  long-looked-for  letter  that  would  make  Hislop 
better  or  worse.  It  came  at  length,  and  Hislop 
was  happy.  With  his  horse,  his  dog,  and  a 
sandwich,  —  but  never  a  gun,  —  he  would  make 
long  excursions  down  toward  Lake  Linderman, 
to  Bennett,  or  over  Atlin  way.  When  the 
country  became  too  rough  for  the  horse,  he 
would  be  left  picketed  near  a  stream  with  a  faith 
ful  dog  to  look  after  him  while  the  pathfinder 
climbed  up  among  the  eagles. 

In  the  meantime  Foy  kept  pounding  away. 
Occasionally  a  soiled  pedestrian  would  slide 
down  the  slope,  tell  a  wild  tale  of  rich  strikes, 
and  a  hundred  men  would  quit  work  and  head 
for  the  highlands.  Foy  would  storm  and  swear 
and  coax  by  turns,  but  to  no  purpose  ;  for  they 
were  like  so  many  steers,  and  as  easily  stam 
peded.  When  the  Atlin  boom  struck  the  camp, 
Foy  lost  five  hundred  men  in  as  many  minutes. 
Scores  of  graders  dropped  their  tools  and  started 
off  on  a  trot.  The  prospector  who  had  told  the 
fable  had  thrown  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder 
to  indicate  the  general  direction.  Nobody  had 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  227 

thought  to  ask  how  far.  Many  forgot  to  let  go ; 
and  Heney's  picks  and  shovels,  worth  over  a 
dollar  apiece,  went  away  with  the  stampeders. 
As  the  wild  mob  swept  on,  the  tethered  blasters 
cut  the  cables  that  guyed  them  to  the  hills,  and 
each  loped  away  with  a  piece  of  rope  around 
one  ankle. 

Panting,  they  passed  over  the  range,  these 
gold-crazed  Coxeys,  without  a  bun  or  a  blanket, 
a  crust  or  a  crumb,  many  without  a  cent  or  even 
a  sweat-mark  where  a  cent  had  slept  in  their 
soiled  overalls. 

When  Foy  had  exhausted  the  English,  Irish, 
and  Alaskan  languages  in  wishing  the  men  luck 
in  various  degrees,  he  rounded  up  the  remnant 
of  his  army  and  began  again.  In  a  day  or  two 
the  stampeders  began  to  limp  back  hungry  and 
weary,  and  every  one  who  brought  a  pick  or  a 
shovel  was  re-employed.  But  hundreds  kept  on 
toward  Lake  Bennett,  and  thence  by  water  up 
Windy  Arm  to  the  Atlin  country,  and  many  of 
them  have  not  yet  returned  to  claim  their  time- 
checks. 

The  autumn  waned.  The  happy  wives  of 
young  engineers,  who  had  been  tented  along  the 


228       THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

line  during  the  summer,  watched  the  wildflowers 
fade  with  a  feeling  of  loneliness  and  deep  long 
ing  for  their  stout-hearted,  strong-limbed  hus 
bands,  who  were  away  up  in  the  cloud-veiled 
hills ;  and  they  longed,  too,  for  other  loved  ones 
in  the  lowlands  of  their  childhood.  Foy's 
blasters  and  builders  buttoned  their  coats  and 
buckled  down  to  keep  warm.  Below,  they 
could  hear  loud  peals  of  profanity  as  the  trailers, 
packers,  and  pilgrims  pounded  their  dumb 
slaves  over  the  trail.  Above,  the  wind  cried  and 
moaned  among  the  crags,  constantly  reminding 
them  that  winter  was  near  at  hand.  The  nights 
were  longer  than  the  days.  The  working  day 
was  cut  from  ten  to  eight  hours,  but  the  pay  of 
the  men  had  been  raised  from  thirty  to  thirty- 
five  cents  an  hour. 

One  day  a  black  cloud  curtained  the  canon, 
and  the  workmen  looked  up  from  their  picks 
and  drills  to  find  that  it  was  November  and 
night.  The  whole  theatre,  stage  and  all,  had 
grown  suddenly  dark ;  but  they  knew,  by  the 
strange,  weird  noise  in  the  wings,  that  the  great 
tra'gedy  of  winter  was  on.  Hislop's  horse  and 
dog  went  down  the  trail.  Hawkins  and  Hislop 


THE    CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  229 

and  Heney  walked  up  and  down  among  the 
men,  as  commanding  officers  show  themselves 
on  the  eve  of  battle.  Foy  chaffed  the  laborers 
and  gave  them  more  rope ;  but  no  amount  of 
levity  could  prevail  against  the  universal  feeling 
of  dread  that  seemed  to  settle  upon  the  whole 
army.  This  weird  Alaska,  so  wild  and  grand, 
so  cool  and  sweet  and  sunny  in  summer,  so 
strangely  sad  in  autumn,  —  this  many-mooded, 
little  known  Alaska  that  seemed  doomed  ever  to 
be  misunderstood,  either  over-lauded  or  lied 
about,  —  what  would  she  do  to  them  ?  How 
cruel,  how  cold,  how  weird,  how  wickedly  wild 
her  winters  must  be  !  Most  men  are  brave,  and 
an  army  of  brave  men  will  breast  great  peril  when 
God's  lamp  lights  the  field ;  but  the  stoutest 
heart  dreads  the  darkness.  These  men  were 
sore  afraid,  all  of  them  ;  and  yet  no  one  was 
willing  to  be  the  first  to  fall  out,  so  they  stood 
their  ground.  They  worked  with  a  will  born  of 
desperation. 

The  wind  moaned  hoarsely.  The  tempera 
ture  dropped  to  thirty-five  degrees  below  zero, 
but  the  men,  in  sheltered  places,  kept  pounding. 
Sometimes  they  would  work  all  day  cleaning  the 


230      THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

snow  from  the  grade  made  the  day  before,  and 
the  next  day  it  would  probably  be  drifted  full 
again.  At  times  the  task  seemed  hopeless;  but 
Heney  had  promised  to  build  to  the  summit  of 
White  Pass  without  a  stop,  and  Foy  had  given 
Heney  his  hand  across  a  table  at  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Hotel  in  Skagway. 

At  times  the  wind  blew  so  frightfully  that  the 
men  had  to  hold  hands  ;  but  they  kept  pegging 
away  between  blasts,  and  in  a  little  while  were 
ready  to  begin  bridging  the  gulches  and  deep 
side-canons.  One  day  —  or  one  night,  rather, 
for  there  were  no  days  then  —  a  camp  cook, 
crazed  by  the  cold  and  the  endless  night,  wan 
dered  off  to  die.  Hislop  and  Heney  found  him, 
but  he  refused  to  be  comforted.  He  wanted  to 
quit,  but  Heney  said  he  could  not  be  spared. 
He  begged  to  be  left  alone  to  sleep  in  the  warm, 
soft  snow,  but  Heney  brought  him  back  to  con 
sciousness  and  to  camp. 

A  premature  blast  blew  a  man  into  eternity. 
The  wind  moaned  still  more  drearily.  The 
snow  drifted  deeper  and  deeper,  and  one  day 
they  found  that,  for  days  and  days,  they  had 
been  blasting  ice  and  snow  when  they  thought 


THE   CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  23! 

they  were  drilling  the  rock.  Heney  and  Foy 
faced  each  other  in  the  dim  light  of  a  tent  lamp 
that  night.  "Must  we  give  up?"  asked  the 
contractor. 

"  No,"  said  Foy,  slowly,  speaking  in  a 
whisper  ;  "  we  '11  build  on  snow,  for  it 's  hard 
and  safe ;  and  in  the  spring  we  '11  ease  it  down 
and  make  a  road-bed." 

They  did  so.  They  built  and  bedded  the 
cross-ties  on  the  snow,  ballasted  with  snow,  and 
ran  over  that  track  until  spring  without  an 
accident. 

They  were  making  mileage  slowly,  but  the 
awful  strain  was  telling  on  the  men  and  on  the 
bank  account.  The  president  of  the  company 
was  almost  constantly  travelling  between  Wash 
ington  and  Ottawa,  pausing  now  and  again  to 
reach  over  to  London  for  another  bag  of  gold, 
for  they  were  melting  it  up  there  in  the  arctic 
night  —  literally  burning  it  up,  were  these  dyna 
miters  of  Foy's. 

To  conceive  this  great  project,  to  put  it  into 
shape,  present  it  in  London,  secure  the  funds 
and  the  necessary  concessions  from  two  govern 
ments,  survey  and  build,  and  have  a  locomotive 


232       THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

running  in  Alaska  a  year  from  the  first  whoop  of 
the  happy  Klondiker,  had  been  a  mighty  achieve 
ment  ;  but  it  was  what  Heney  would  call  "  dead 
easy  "  compared  with  the  work  that  confronted 
the  President  at  this  time.  On  July  20,  1897, 
the  first  pick  was  driven  into  the  ground  at 
White  Pass ;  just  a  year  later  the  pioneer  loco 
motive  was  run  over  the  road.  More  than  once 
had  the  financial  backers  allowed  their  faith  in 
the  enterprise  and  in  the  future  of  the  country 
beyond  to  slip  away  ;  but  the  President  of  the 
company  had  always  succeeded  in  building  it 
up  again,  for  they  had  never  lost  faith  in  him,  or 
in  his  ability  to  see  things  that  were  to  most 
men  invisible.  In  summer,  when  the  weekly 
reports  showed  a  mile  or  more  or  less  of  track 
laid,  it  was  not  so  hard  ;  but  when  days  were 
spent  in  placing  a  single  bent  in  a  bridge,  and 
weeks  were  consumed  on  a  switch  back  in  a 
pinched-out  canon,  it  was  hard  to  persuade  sane 
men  that  business  sense  demanded  that  they  pile 
on  more  fuel.  But  they  did  it ;  and,  as  the 
work  went  on,  it  became  apparent  to  those  in 
terested  in  such  undertakings  that  all  the  heroes 
of  the  White  Pass  were  not  in  the  hills. 


THE   CONQUESl^  OF  ALASKA  233 

In  addition  to  the  elements,  ever  at  war  with 
the  builders,  they  had  other  worries  that  winter. 
Hawkins  had  a  fire  that  burned  all  the  com 
pany's  offices  and  all  his  maps  and  notes  and 
records  of  surveys.  Foy  had  a  strike,  incited 
largely  by  jealous  packers  and  freighters ;  and 
there  was  hand-to-hand  fighting  between  the 
strikers  and  their  abettors  and  the  real  builders, 
who  sympathized  with  the  company. 

Brydone-Jack,  a  fine  young  fellow,  who  had 
been  sent  out  as  consulting  engineer  to  look 
after  the  interests  of  the  shareholders,  clapped 
his  hands  to  his  forehead  and  fell,  face  down,  in 
the  snow.  His  comrades  carried  him  to  his 
tent.  He  had  been  silent,  had  suffered,  perhaps 
for  a  day  or  two,  but  had  said  nothing.  The 
next  night  he  passed  away.  His  wife  was  wait 
ing  at  Vancouver  until  he  could  finish  his  work 
in  Alaska  and  go  home  to  her. 

With  sad  and  heavy  hearts  Hawkins  and 
Hislop  and  Heney  climbed  back  to  where  Foy 
and  his  men  were  keeping  up  the  fight.  Like 
so  many  big  lightning-bugs  they  seemed,  with 
their  dim  white  lamps  rattling  around  in  the 
storm.  It  was  nearly  all  night  then.  God  and 


234       THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

his  sunlight  seemed  to  have  forsaken  Alaska. 
Once  every  twenty-four  hours  a  little  ball  of  fire, 
red,  round,  and  remote,  swung  across  the  canon, 
dimly  lighted  their  lunch-tables,  and  then  dis 
appeared  behind  the  great  glacier  that  guards 
the  gateway  to  the  Klondike. 

As  the  road  neared  the  summit,  Heney  ob 
served  that  Foy  was  growing  nervous,  and  that 
he  coughed  a  great  deal.  He  watched  the  old 
fellow,  and  found  that  he  was  not  eating  well, 
and  that  he  slept  very  little.  Heney  asked  Foy 
to  rest,  but  the  latter  shook  his  head.  Hawkins 
and  Hislop  and  Heney  talked  the  matter  over 
in  Hislop's  tent,  called  Foy  in,  and  demanded 
that  he  go  down  and  out.  Foy  was  coughing 
constantly,  but  he  choked  it  back  long  enough 
to  tell  the  three  men  what  he  thought  of  them. 
He  had  worked  hard  and  faithfully  to  complete 
the  job,  and  now  that  only  one  level  mile  re 
mained  to  be  railed,  would  they  send  the  old 
man  down  the  hill?  "I  will  not  budge,"  said 
Foy,  facing  his  friends;  "an'  when  you  gentle 
men  ar-re  silibratin'  th'  vict'ry  at  the  top  o'  the 
hill  ahn  Chuesday  nixt,  Hugh  Foy  '11  be  wood 
ye.  Do  you  moind  that,  now?" 


THE    CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA  235 

Foy  steadied  himself  by  a  tent-pole  and 
coughed  violently.  His  eyes  were  glassy,  and 
his  face  flushed  with  the  purplish  flush  that  fever 
gives. 

"  Enough  of  this  ! "  said  the  chief  engineer, 
trying  to  look  severe.  "Take  this  message, 
sign  it,  and  send  it  at  once." 

Foy  caught  the  bit  of  white  clip  and  read :  — 

"CAPTAIN  O'BRIEN, 

SKAGWAY. 

"  Save  a  berth  for  me  on  the  '  Rosalie.'  " 

They  thought,  as  they  watched  him,  that  the 
old  road-maker  was  about  to  crush  the  paper 
in  his  rough  right  hand ;  but  suddenly  his  face 
brightened,  he  reached  for  a  pencil,  saying,  "  I  '11 
do  it,"  and  when  he  had  added  "  next  trip  "  to 
the  message,  he  signed  it,  folded  it,  and  took  it 
over  to  the  operator. 

So  it  happened  that,  when  the  last  spike  was 
driven  at  the  summit,  on  February  20,  1899,  the 
old  foreman,  who  had  driven  the  first,  drove  the 
last,  and  it  was  his  last  spike  as  well.  Doctor 
Whiting  guessed  it  was  pneumonia. 

When  the  road  had  been  completed  to  Lake 


336      THE  CONQUEST  OF  ALASKA 

Bennett,  the  owners  came  over  to  see  it ;  and 
when  they  saw  what  had  been  done,  despite  the 
prediction  that  Dawson  was  dead  and  that  the 
Cape  Nome  boom  would  equal  that  of  the  Klon 
dike,  they  authorized  the  construction  of  another 
hundred  miles  of  road  which  would  connect  with 
the  Yukon  below  the  dreaded  White  Horse 
Rapids.  Jack  and  Foy  and  Hislop  are  gone ; 
and  when  John  Hislop  passed  away,  the  West 
lost  one  of  the  most  modest  and  unpretentious, 
yet  one  of  the  best  and  bravest,  one  of  the 
purest  minded  men  that  ever  saw  the  sun  go 
down  behind  a  snowy  range. 


NUMBER  THREE 


ONE  winter  night,  as  the  west-bound  express 
was  pulling  out  of  Omaha,  a  drunken  man 
climbed  aboard.  The  young  Superintendent, 
who  stood  on  the  rear  platform,  caught  the  man 
by  the  collar  and  hauled  him  up  the  steps. 

The  train,  from  the  tank  to  the  tail-lights,  was 
crammed  full  of  passenger-people  going  home  or 
away  to  spend  Christmas.  Over  in  front  the 
express  and  baggage  cars  were  piled  full  of  bag 
gage,  bundles,  boxes,  trinkets,  and  toys,  each 
intended  to  make  some  heart  happier  on  the 
morrow,  for  it  was  Christmas  Eve.  It  was  to 
see  that  these  passengers  and  their  precious 
freight,  already  a  day  late,  got  through  that  the 
Superintendent  was  leaving  his  own  fireside  to 
go  over  the  road. 

The  snow  came  swirling  across  the  plain,  cold 
and  wet,  pasting  the  window  and  blurring  the 
headlight  on  the  black  locomotive  that  was  climb 
ing  laboriously  over  the  kinks  and  curves  of  a 


240  NUMBER    THREE 


new  track.  Here  and  there,  in  sheltered  wim 
ples,  bands  of  buffalo  were  bunched  to  shield 
them  from  the  storm.  Now  and  then  an  ante 
lope  left  the  rail  or  a  lone  coyote  crouched  in  the 
shadow  of  a  telegraph-pole  as  the  dim  headlight 
swept  the  right  of  way.  At  each  stop  the  Super 
intendent  would  jump  down,  look  about,  and 
swing  onto  the  rear  car  as  the  train  pulled  out 
again.  At  one  time  he  found  that  his  seat  had 
been  taken,  also  his  overcoat,  which  had  been 
left  hanging  over  the  back.  The  thief  was  dis 
covered  on  the  blind  baggage  and  turned  over 
to  the  "  city  marshal "  at  the  next  stop. 

Upon  entering  the  train  again,  the  Superin 
tendent  went  forward  to  find  a  seat  in  the  ex 
press  car.  It  was  near  midnight  now.  They 
were  coming  into  a  settlement  and  passing 
through  prosperous  new  towns  that  were  build 
ing  up  near  the  end  of  the  division.  Near  the 
door  the  messenger  had  set  a  little  green  Christ 
mas  tree,  and  grouped  about  it  were  a  red  sled, 
a  doll-carriage,  some  toys,  and  a  few  parcels.  If 
the  blond  doll  in  the  little  toy  carriage  toppled 
over,  the  messenger  would  set  it  up  again  ;  and 
when  passing  freight  out  he  was  careful  not  to 


NUMBER    THREE  24! 

knock  a  twig  from  the  tree.  So  intent  was  he 
upon  the  task  of  taking  care  of  this  particular 
shipment  that  he  had  forgotten  the  Superin 
tendent,  and  started  and  almost  stared  at  him 
when  he  shouted  the  observation  that  the  mes 
senger  was  a  little  late  with  his  tree. 

"  'T  ain't  mine,"  he  said  sadly,  shaking  his 
head.  "  B'longs  to  the  fellow  't  swiped  your 
coat." 

"  No  !  "  exclaimed  the  Superintendent,  as  he 
went  over  to  look  at  the  toys. 

"  If  he  'd  only  asked  me,"  said  the  messenger, 
more  to  himself  than  to  the  Superintendent,  "he 
could  'a'  had  mine  and  welcome." 

"Do  you  know  the  man?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  — he  lives  next  door  to  me,  and  I  '11 
have  to  face  his  wife  and  lie  to  her,  and  then 
face  my  own  ;  but  I  can't  lie  to  her.  I  '11  tell  her 
the  truth  and  get  roasted  for  letting  Downs  get 
away.  I  '11  go  to  sleep  by  the  sound  of  her  sobs 
and  wake  to  find  her  crying  in  her  coffee  —  that 's 
the  kind  of  a  Christmas  I  '11  have.  When  he  's 
drunk  he 's  disgusting,  of  course ;  but  when 
he  's  sober  he  's  sorry.  And  Charley  Downs  is 
honest." 

16 


242  NUMBER    THREE 

"  Honest  !  "  shouted  the  Superintendent. 

"  Yes,  I  know  he  took  your  coat,  but  that 
was  n't  Charley  Downs  ;  it  was  the  tarantula- 
juice  he  'd  been  imbibing  in  Omaha.  Left  alone 
he  's  as  honest  as  I  am  ;  and  here  's  a  run  that 
would  trip  up  a  missionary.  For  instance,  leaving 
Loneville  the  other  night,  a  man  came  running 
alongside  the  car  and  threw  in  a  bundle  of  bills 
that  looked  like  a  bale  of  hay.  Not  a  scrap  of 
paper  or  pencil-mark,  just  a  wad  o'  winnings 
with  a  wang  around  the  middle.  '  A  Christmas 
gift  for  my  wife,'  he  yelled.  '  How  much?' 
I  shouted.  'Oh,  I  dunno  —  whole  lot,  but  it's 
tied  good ' ;  and  then  a  cloud  of  steam  from  the 
cylinder-cocks  came  between  us,  and  I  have  n't 
seen  him  since. 

"  For  the  past  six  months  Downs  has  tried 
hard  to  be  decent,  and  has  succeeded  some  ; 
and  this  was  to  be  the  supreme  test.  For  six 
months  his  wife  has  been  saving  up  to  send  him 
to  Omaha  to  buy  things  for  Christmas.  If  he 
could  do  that,  she  argued,  and  come  back  sober, 
he  'd  be  stronger  to  begin  the  New  Year.  Of 
course  they  looked  to  me  to  keep  him  on  the 
rail,  and  I  did.  I  shadowed  him  from  shop  to 


NUMBER    THREE  243 


shop  until  he  bought  all  the  toys  and  some  little 
trinkets  for  his  wife.  Always  I  found  he  had 
paid  and  ordered  the  things  to  be  sent  to  the 
express  office  marked  to  me. 

"  Well,  finally  I  followed  him  to  a  clothing 
store,  where,  according  to  a  promise  made  to  his 
wife,  he  bought  an^overcoat,  the  first  he  had  felt 
on  his  back  for  years.  This  he  put  on,  of 
course,  for  it  is  cold  in  Omaha  to-day ;  and  I 
left  him  and  slipped  away  to  grab  a  few  hours' 
sleep. 

"  When  I  woke  I  went  out  to  look  for  him, 
but  could  not  find  him,  though  I  tried  hard,  and 
came  to  my  car  without  supper.  I  found  his 
coat,  however,  hung  up  in  a  saloon,  and  re 
deemed  it,  hoping  still  to  find  Charley  before 
train  time.  I  watched  for  him  until  we  were 
signalled  out,  and  then  went  back  and  looked 
through  the  train,  but  failed  to  find  him. 

"  Of  course  I  am  sorry  for  Charley,"  the  mes 
senger  went  on  after  a  pause,  "  but  more  so  for 
the  poor  little  woman.  She 's  worked  and 
worked,  and  saved  and  saved,  and  hoped  and 
dreamed,  until  she  actually  believed  he  'd  been 
cured  and  that  the  sun  would  shine  in  her  life 


244  NUMBER    THREE 

again.  Why,  the  neighbors  have  been  talking 
across  the  back  fence  about  how  well  Mrs. 
Downs  was  looking.  My  wife  declared  she 
heard  her  laugh  the  other  day  clear  over  to  our 
house.  Half  the  town  knew  about  her  dream. 
The  women  folks  have  been  carrying  work  to 
her  and  then  going  over  and^  helping  her  do  it 
as  a  sort  of  surprise  party.  And  now  it 's  all  off. 
To-morrow  will  be  Christmas  ;  and  he  '11  be  in 
jail,  his  wife  in  despair,  and  I  in  disgrace. 
Charley  Downs  a  thief — in  jail!  It'll  just 
break  her  heart !" 

The  whistle  proclaimed  a  stop,  and  the  Super 
intendent  swung  out  with  a  lump  in  his  throat. 
This  was  an  important  station,  and  the  last  one 
before  Loneville.  Without  looking  to  the  right 
or  left,  the  Superintendent  walked  straight  to  the 
telegraph  office  and  sent  the  following  message 
to  the  agent  at  the  place  where  Downs  had  been 
ditched :  — 

"  Turn  that  fellow  loose  and  send  him  to  Lone 
ville  on  three —  all  a  joke. 

"W.  C.  V.,  Superintendent." 

In  a  little  while  the  train  was  rattling  over 
the  road  again  ;  and  when  the  engine  screamed 


NUMBER    THREE  245 

for  Loneville,  the  Superintendent  stood  up  and 
looked  at  the  messenger. 

"  What  '11  I  tell  her?  "  the  latter  asked. 

"  Well,  he  got  left  at  Cactus  sure  enough, 
didn't  he?  If  that  doesn't  satisfy  her,  tell  her 
that  he  may  get  over  on  No.  3." 

When  the  messenger  had  turned  his  freight  over 
to  the  driver  of  the  Fargo  wagon,  he  gathered  up 
the  Christmas  tree  and  the  toys  and  trudged 
homeward,  looking  like  Santa  Claus,  so  com 
pletely  hidden  was  he  by  the  tree  and  the  trin 
kets.  As  he  neared  the  Downs'  home,  the  door 
swung  open,  the  lamplight  shone  out  upon 
him,  and  he  saw  two  women  smiling  from  the 
open  door.  It  took  but  one  glance  at  the  mes 
senger's  face  to  show  them  that  something  was 
wrong,  and  the  smiles  faded.  Mrs.  Downs  re 
ceived  the  shock  without  a  murmur,  leaning  on 
her  friend  and  leaving  the  marks  of  her  fingers 
on  her  friend's  arm. 

The  messenger  put  the  toys  down  suddenly, 
silently  ;  and  feeling  that  the  unhappy  woman 
would  be  better  alone,  the  neighbors  departed, 
leaving  her  seated  by  the  window,  peering  into 
the  night,  the  lamp  turned  very  low. 


246  NUMBER    THREE 

The  little  clock  on  the  shelf  above  the  stove 
ticked  off  the  seconds,  measured  the  minutes, 
and  marked  the  melancholy  hours.  The  storm 
ceased,  the  stars  came  out  and  showed  the  quiet 
town  asleep  beneath  its  robe  of  white.  The 
clock  was  now  striking  four,  and  she  had  scarcely 
stirred.  She  was  thinking  of  the  watchers  of 
Bethlehem,  when  suddenly  a  great  light  shone  on 
the  eastern  horizon.  At  last  the  freight  was 
coming.  She  had  scarcely  noticed  the  messen 
ger's  suggestion  that  Charley  might  come  in  on 
three.  Now  she  waited,  with  just  the  faintest 
ray  of  hope  ;  and  after  a  long  while  the  deep 
voice  of  the  locomotive  came  to  her,  the  long 
black  train  crept  past  and  stopped.  Now  her 
heart  beat  wildly.  Somebody  was  coming  up 
the  road.  A  moment  later  she  recognized  her 
erring  husband,  dressed  exactly  as  he  had  been 
when  he  left  home,  his  short  coat  buttoned  close 
up  under  his  chin.  When  she  saw  him  approach 
ing  slowly  but  steadily,  she  knew  he  was  sober 
and  doubtless  cold.  She  was  about  to  fling  the 
door  open  to  admit  him  when  he  stopped  and 
stood  still.  She  watched  him.  He  seemed  to 
be  wringing  his  hands.  An  awful  thought  chilled 


NUMBER    THREE  247 

her,  —  the  thought  that  the  cold  and  exposure 
had  unbalanced  his  mind.  Suddenly  he  knelt 
in  the  snow  and  turned  his  sad  face  up  to  the 
quiet  sky.  He  was  praying,  and  with  a  sudden 
impulse  she  fell  upon  her  knees  and  they  prayed 
together  with  only  the  window-glass  between 
them. 

When  the  prodigal  got  to  his  feet,  the  door 
stood  open  and  his  wife  was  waiting  to  receive 
him.  At  sight  of  her,  dressed  as  she  had  been 
when  he  left  her,  a  sudden  flame  of  guilt  and 
shame  burned  through  him ;  but  it  served  only 
to  clear  his  brain  and  strengthen  his  will-power, 
which  all  his  life  had  been  so  weak,  and  lately 
made  weaker  for  want  of  exercise.  He  walked 
almost  hurriedly  to  the  chair  she  set  for  him 
near  the  stove,  and  sank  into  it  with  the  weary 
air  of  one  who  has  been  long  in  bed.  She  felt 
of  his  hands  and  they  were  not  cold.  She 
touched  his  face  and  found  it  warm.  She 
pushed  the  dark  hair  from  his  pale  forehead  and 
kissed  it.  She  knelt  and  prayed  again,  her  head 
upon  his  knee.  He  bowed  above  her  while 
she  prayed,  and  stroked  her  hair.  She  felt  his 
tears  falling  upon  her  head.  She  stood  up,  and 


248  NUMBER    THREE 

when  he  lifted  his  face  to  hers,  looked  into  his 
wide  weeping  eyes, — aye,  into  his  very  soul. 
She  liked  to  see  the  tears  and  the  look  of  agony 
on  his  face,  for  she  knew  by  these  signs  how  he 
suffered,  and  she  knew  why. 

When  he  had  grown  calm  she  brought  a  cup 
of  coffee  to  him.  He  drank  it,  and  then  she  led 
him  to  the  little  dining-room,  where  a  midnight 
supper  had  been  set  for  four,  but,  because  of  his 
absence,  had  not  been  touched.  He  saw  the 
tree  and  the  toys  that  the  messenger  had  left, 
and  spoke  for  the  first  time.  "  Oh,  wife  dear, 
have  they  all  come  ?  Are  they  all  here  ?  The 
toys  and  all  ?  "  and  then,  seeing  the  overcoat  that 
the  messenger  had  left  on  a  chair  near  by,  and 
which  his  wife  had  not  yet  seen,  he  cried  ex 
citedly,  "  Take  that  away  —  it  is  n't  mine  !  " 

"Why,  yes,  dear,"  said  his  wife,  "it  must  be 
yours." 

"  No,  no,"  he  said;  "I  bought  a  coat  like 
that,  but  I  sold  it.  I  drank  a  lot  and  only 
climbed  on  the  train  as  it  was  pulling  out  of 
Omaha.  In  the  warm  car  I  fell  asleep  and 
dreamed  the  sweetest  dream  I  ever  knew.  I 
had  come  home  sober  with  all  the  things,  you 


NUMBER    THREE 


249 


had  kissed  me,  we  had  a  great  dinner  here,  and 
there  stood  the  Christmas  tree,  the  children 
were  here,  the  messenger  and  his  wife,  and  their 
children.  We  were  all  so  happy !  I  saw  the 
shadow  fade  from  your  face,  saw  you  smile  and 
heard  you  laugh ;  saw  the  old  love-light  in  your 
eyes  and  the  rose  coming  into  your  cheek.  And 
then  — '  Oh,  bitterness  of  things  too  sweet !  '  —  I 
woke  to  find  my  own  old  trembling  self  again. 
It  was  all  a  dream.  Looking  across  the  aisle,  I 
saw  that  coat  on  the  back  of  an  empty  seat.  I 
knew  it  was  not  mine,  for  I  had  sold  mine  for 
two  miserable  dollars.  I  knew,  too,  that  the 
man  who  gave  them  to  me  got  them  back  again 
before  they  were  warm  in  my  pocket.  This 
thought  embittered  me,  and,  picking  up  the  coat, 
I  walked  out  and  stood  on  the  platform  of  the 
baggage  car.  At  the  next  stop  they  took  me  off 
and  turned  me  over  to  the  city  marshal,  —  for 
the  coat  belonged  to  the  Superintendent. 

"  It  is  like  mine,  except  that  it  is  real,  and 
mine,  of  course,  was  only  a  good  imitation. 
Take  it  away,  wife  —  do  take  it  away  —  it 
haunts  me  !  " 

Pitying  him,  the  wife  put  the  coat  out  of  his 


250  NUMBER    THREE 

sight;  and  immediately  lie  grew  calm,  drank 
freely  of  the  strong  coffee,  but  he  could  not  cat. 
Presently  he  went  over  and  began  to  arrange 
the  little  Christmas  tree  in  the  box  his  wife  had 
prepared  for  it  during  his  absence.  She  began 
opening  the  parcels,  and  when  she  could  trust 
herself,  began  to  talk  about  the  surprise  they 
would  have  for  the  children,  and  now  and  again 
to  express  her  appreciation  of  some  dainty  trifle 
he  had  selected  for  her.  She  watched  him 
closely,  noting  that  his  hand  was  unsteady,  and 
that  he  was  inclined  to  stagger  after  stooping  for 
a  little  while.  Finally,  when  the  tree  had  been 
trimmed,  and  the  sled  for  the  boy  and  the  doll- 
carriage  for  the  girl  were  placed  beneath  it,  she 
got  him  to  lie  down.  When  she  had  made  him 
comfortable  she  kissed  him  again,  knelt  by  his 
bed  and  prayed,  or  rather  offered  thanks,  and 
he  was  asleep. 

Two  hours  later  the  subdued  shouts  of  her 
babies,  the  exclamations  of  glad  surprise  that 
came  in  stage  whispers  from  the  dining-room, 
woke  her,  and  she  rose  from  the  little  couch 
where  she  had  fallen  asleep,  already  dressed  to 
begin  the  day. 


NUMBER    THREE  25! 

It  was  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  she 
called  the  prodigal.  When  he  had  bathed  his 
feverish  face  and  put  on  the  fresh  clothes  she 
had  brought  in  for  him  and  come  into  the 
dining-room,  he  saw  his  rosy  dreams  of  the  pre 
vious  night  fulfilled.  The  messenger  and  his 
wife  shook  hands  with  him  and  wished  him  a 
Merry  Christmas.  His  children,  all  the  children, 
came  and  kissed  him.  His  wife  was  smiling, 
and  the  warm  blood  leaping  from  her  happy 
heart  actually  put  color  in  her  cheeks. 

As  Downs  took  the  chair  at  the  head  of  the 
table  he  bowed  his  head,  the  rest  did  likewise, 
and  he  gave  thanks,  fervently  and  without 
embarrassment. 


tljat 


THE   STUFF  THAT   STANDS 


IT  was  very  late  in  the  fifties,  and  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  were  engaged  in  animated  discus 
sion  of  the  burning  questions  of  the  time,  when 
Melvin  Jewett  journeyed  to  Bloomington,  Illinois, 
to  learn  telegraphy. 

It  was  then  a  new,  weird  business,  and  his 
father  advised  him  not  to  fool  with  it.  His  col 
lege  chum  said  to  him,  as  they  chatted  together 
for  the  last  time  before  leaving  school,  that  it 
would  be  grewsomely  lonely  to  sit  in  a  dimly 
lighted  flag-station  and  have  that  inanimate  ma 
chine  tick  off  its  talk  to  him  in  the  sable  hush  of 
night ;  but  Jewett  was  ambitious.  Being  earnest, 
brave,  and  industrious,  he  learned  rapidly,  and 
in  a  few  months  found  himself  in  charge  of  a  little 
wooden  way-station  as  agent,  operator,  yard- 
master,  and  everything  else.  It  was  lonely,  but 
there  was  no  night  work.  When  the  shadows 
came  and  hung  on  the  bare  walls  of  his  office  the 


256  THE   STUFF  THAT  STANDS 

spook  pictures  that  had  been  painted  by  his 
school  chum,  the  young  operator  went  over  to 
the  little  tavern  for  the  night. 

True,  Springdale  at  that  time  was  not  much 
of  a  town ;  but  the  telegraph  boy  had  the  satis 
faction  of  feeling  that  he  was,  by  common  con 
sent,  the  biggest  man  in  the  place. 

Out  in  a  hayfield,  he  could  see  from  his  win 
dow  a  farmer  gazing  up  at  the  humming  wire, 
and  the  farmer's  boy  holding  his  ear  to  the  pole, 
trying  to  understand.  All  this  business  that  so 
blinded  and-  bewildered  with  its  mystery,  not 
only  the  farmer,  but  the  village  folks  as  well,  was 
to  him  as  simple  as  sunshine. 

In  a  little  while  he  had  learned  to  read  a 
newspaper  with  one  eye  and  keep  the  other  on 
the  narrow  window  that  looked  out  along  the 
line  ;  to  mark  with  one  ear  the  "  down  brakes  " 
signal  of  the  north-bound  freight,  clear  in  the 
siding,  and  with  the  other  to  catch  the  whistle 
of  the  oncoming  "cannon  ball,"  faint  and  far 
away. 

When  Jewett  had  been  at  Springdale  some  six 
or  eight  months,  another  young  man  dropped 
from  the  local  one  morning,  and  said,  "  Wie 


THE  STUFF  THAT  STANDS       257 

gehts"  and  handed  him  a  letter.  The  letter 
was  from  the  Superintendent,  calling  him  back 
to  Bloomington  to  despatch  trains.  Being  the 
youngest  of  the  despatches,  he  had  to  take  the 
"  death  trick."  The  day  man  used  to  work 
from  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  "  split  trick  "  man 
from  four  until  midnight,  and  the  "  death  trick  " 
man  from  midnight  until  morning. 

We  called  it  the  "death  trick"  because,  in 
the  early  days  of  railroading,  we  had  a  lot  of 
wrecks  about  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  That 
was  before  double  tracks  and  safety  inventions 
had  made  travelling  by  rail  safer  than  sleeping  at 
home,  and  before  trainmen  off  duty  had  learned 
to  look  not  on  liquor  that  was  red.  Jewett, 
however,  was  not  long  on  the  night  shift  He 
was  a  good  despatcher,  — a  bit  risky  at  times,  the 
chief  thought,  but  that  was  only  when  he  knew 
his  man.  He  was  a  rusher  and  ran  trains  close, 
but  he  was  ever  watchful  and  wide  awake. 

In  two  years'  time  he  had  become  chief  de 
spatcher.     During   these  years  the   country,  so 
quiet  when  he  first  went  to  Bloomington,  had 
been  torn  by  the  tumult  of  civil  strife. 
17 


258  THE  STUFF  THAT  STANDS 

With  war  news  passing  under  his  eye  every 
day,  trains  going  south  with  soldiers,  and  cars 
coming  north  with  the  wounded,  it  is  not  re 
markable  that  the  fever  should  get  into  the 
young  despatcher's  blood.  He  read  of  the  great, 
sad  Lincoln,  whom  he  had  seen  and  heard  and 
known,  calling  for  volunteers,  and  his  blood 
rushed  red  and  hot  through  his  veins.  He 
talked  to  the  trainmen  who  came  in  to  register, 
to  enginemen  waiting  for  orders,  to  yardmen  in 
the  yards,  and  to  shopmen  after  hours ;  and 
many  of  them,  catching  the  contagion,  urged 
him  to  organize  a  company,  and  he  did.  He 
continued  to  work  days  and  to  drill  his  men  in 
the  twilight.  He  would  have  been  up  and 
drilling  at  dawn  if  he  could  have  gotten  them 
together.  He  inspired  them  with  his  quiet  en 
thusiasm,  held  them  by  personal  magnetism,  and 
by  unselfish  patriotism  kindled  in  the  breast  of 
each  of  his  fifty  followers  a  desire  to  do  some 
thing  for  his  country.  Gradually  the  railroad, 
so  dear  to  him,  slipped  back  to  second  place  in 
the  affairs  of  the  earth.  His  country  was  first. 
To  be  sure,  there  was  no  shirking  of  responsi 
bility  at  the  office,  but  the  business  of  the 


THE  STUFF   THAT  STANDS  259 

company  was  never  allowed  to  overshadow  the 
cause  in  which  he  had  silently  but  heartily  en 
listed.  "Abe"  Lincoln  was,  to  his  way  of 
reasoning,  a  bigger  man  than  the  President  of 
the  Chicago  and  Alton  Railroad  —  which  was 
something  to  concede.  The  country  must  be 
cared  for  first,  he  argued  ;  for  what  good  would 
a  road  be  with  no  country  to  run  through  ? 

All  day  he  would  work  at  the  despatcher's 
office,  flagging  fast  freights  and  "  laying  out  " 
local  passenger  trains,  to  the  end  that  the  sol 
diers  might  be  hurried  south.  He  would  pocket 
the  "  cannon  ball  "  and  order  the  "  thunderbolt  " 
held  at  Alton  for  the  soldiers'  special.  "  Take 
siding  at  Sundance  for  troop'train,  south-bound," 
he  would  flash  out,  and  glory  in  his  power  to 
help  the  government. 

All  day  he  would  work  and  scheme  for  the 
company  (and  the  Union),  and  at  night,  when 
the  silver  moonlight  lay  on  the  lot  back  of  the 
machine  shops,  he  would  drill  and  drill  as  long 
as  he  could  hold  the  men  together.  They  were 
all  stout  and  fearless  young  fellows,  trained  and 
accustomed  to  danger  by  the  hazard  of  their 
daily  toil.  They  knew  something  of  discipline, 


260  THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 

were  used  to  obeying  orders,  and  to  reading  and 
remembering  regulations  made  for  their  guid 
ance  ;  and  Jewett  reasoned  that  they  would  be 
come,  in  time,  a  crack  company,  and  a  credit 
to  the  state. 

By  the  time  he  had  his  company  properly 
drilled,  young  Jewett  was  so  perfectly  saturated 
with  the  subject  of  war  that  he  was  almost  unfit 
for  duty  as  a  despatcher.  Only  his  anxiety  about 
south-bound  troop  trains  held  his  mind  to  the 
matter  and  his  hand  to  the  wheel.  At  night, 
after  a  long  evening  in  the  drill  field,  he  would 
dream  of  great  battles,  and  hear  in  his  dreams 
the  ceaseless  tramp,  tramp  of  soldiers  marching 
down  from  the  north  to  re-enforce  the  fellows  in 
the  fight. 

Finally,  when  he  felt  that  they  were  fit,  he 
called  his  company  together  for  the  election  of 
officers.  Jewett  was  the  unanimous  choice  for 
captain,  other  officers  were  chosen,  and  the 
captain  at  once  applied  for  a  commission. 

The  Jewetts  were  an  influential  family,  and  no 
one  doubted  the  result  of  the  young  despatcher's 
request.  He  waited  anxiously  for  some  time, 
wrote  a  second  letter,  and  waited  again.  "Any 


THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS  261 

news  from  Springfield?"  the  conductor  would 
ask,  leaving  the  register,  and  the  chief  despatcher 
would  shake  his  head. 

One  morning,  on  entering  his  office,  Jewett 
found  a  letter  on  his  desk.  It  was  from  the 
Superintendent,  and  it  stated  bluntly  that  the 
resignation  of  the  chief  despatcher  would  be 
accepted,  and  named  his  successor. 

Jewett  read  it  over  a  second  time,  then  turned 
and  carried  it  into  the  office  of  his  chief. 

"Why?"  echoed  the  Superintendent;  "you 
ought  to  know  why.  For  months  you  have  ne 
glected  your  office,  and  have  worked  and  schemed 
and  conspired  to  get  trainmen  and  enginemen 
to  quit  work  and  go  to  war.  Every  day  women 
who  are  not  ready  to  be  widowed  come  here 
and  cry  on  the  carpet  because  their  husbands 
are  going  away  with  '  Captain'  Jewett's  company. 
Only  yesterday  a  schoolgirl  came  running  after 
me,  begging  me  not  to  let  her  little  brother,  the 
red-headed  peanut  on  the  local,  go  as  drummer- 
boy  in  '  Captain  '  Jewett's  company. 

"  And  now,  after  demoralizing  the  service  and 
almost  breaking  up  a  half  a  hundred  homes,  you 
ask,  'Why?'  Is  that  all  you  have  to  say?" 


262  THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 

"  No,"  said  the  despatcher,  lifting  his  head ; 
"  I  have  to  say  to  you,  sir,  that  I  have  never  know 
ingly  neglected  my  duty.  I  have  not  conspired. 
I  have  been  misjudged  and  misunderstood  ;  and 
in  conclusion,  I  would  say  that  my  resignation 
shall  be  written  at  once." 

Returning  to  his  desk,  Jewett  found  the  long- 
looked-for  letter  from  Springfield.  How  his  heart 
beat  as  he  broke  the  seal!  How  timely  —  just 
as  things  come  out  in  a  play.  He  would  not 
interrupt  traffic  on  the  Alton,  but  with  a  com 
mission  in  his  pocket  would  go  elsewhere  and 
organize  a  new  company.  These  things  flashed 
through  his  mind  as  he  unfolded  the  letter.  His 
eye  fell  immediately  on  the  signature  at  the  end. 
It  was  not  the  name  of  the  Governor,  who  had 
been  a  close  friend  of  his  father,  but  of  the 
Lieutenant-Governor.  It  was  a  short  letter,  but 
plain  ;  and  it  left  no  hope.  His  request  had  been 
denied. 

This  time  he  did  not  ask  why.  He  knew  why, 
and  knew  that  the  influence  of  a  great  railway 
company,  with  the  best  of  the  argument  on  its 
side,  would  outweigh  the  influence  of  a  train 
despatcher  and  his  friends. 


THE  STUFF  THAT  STANDS       263 

Reluctantly  Jevvett  took  leave  of  his  old  asso 
ciates  in  the  office,  went  to  his  room  in  the  hotel, 
and  sat  for  hours  crushed  and  discouraged. 
Presently  he  rose,  kicked  the  kinks  out  of  his 
trousers,  and  walked  out  into  the  clear  sunlight. 
At  the  end  of  the  street  he  stepped  from  the  side 
walk  to  the  sod  path  and  kept  walking.  He 
passed  an  orchard  and  plucked  a  ripe  peach 
from  an  overhanging  bough.  A  yellow-breasted 
lark  stood  in  a  stubble-field,  chirped  two  or  three 
times,  and  soared,  singing,  toward  the  far  blue 
sky.  A  bare-armed  man,  with  a  muley  cradle, 
was  cradling  grain,  and,  far  away,  he  heard  the 
hum  of  a  horse-power  threshing  machine.  It 
had  been  months,  it  seemed  years,  since  he  had 
been  in  the  country,  felt  its  cooling  breeze, 
smelled  the  fresh  breath  of  the  fields,  or  heard 
the  song  of  a  lark ;  and  it  rested  and  refreshed 
him. 

When  young  Jewett  returned  to  the  town  he 
was  himself  again.  He  had  been  guilty  of  no 
wrong,  but  had  been  about  what  seemed  to  him 
his  duty  to  his  country.  Still,  he  remembered 
with  sadness  the  sharp  rebuke  of  the  Superin 
tendent,  a  feeling  intensified  by  the  recollection 


264  THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 

that  it  was  the  same  official  who  had  brought  him 
in  from  Springdale,  made  a  train  despatcher  out 
of  him,  and  promoted  him  as  often  as  he  had 
earned  promotion.  If  he  had  seemed  to  be  act 
ing  in  bad  faith  with  the  officials  of  the  road,  he 
would  make  amends.  That  night  he  called  his 
company  together,  told  them  that  he  had  been 
unable  to  secure  a  commission,  stated  that  he 
had  resigned  and  was  going  away,  and  advised 
them  to  disband. 

The  company  forming  at  Lexington  was  called 
"The  Farmers,"  just  as  the  Bloomington  com 
pany  was  known  as  the  "  Car-hands."  "  The 
Farmers  "  was  full,  the  captain  said,  when  Jew- 
ett  offered  his  services.  At  the  last  moment  one 
of  the  boys  had  "  heart  failure,"  and  Jewett  was 
taken  in  his  place.  His  experience  with  the 
disbanded  "  Car-hands "  helped  him  and  his 
company  immeasurably.  It  was  only  a  few 
days  after  his  departure  from  Bloomington  that 
he  again  passed  through,  a  private  in  "The 
Farmers." 

Once  in  the  South,  the  Lexington  company 
became  a  part  of  the  1841!!  Illinois  Infantry,  and 
almost  immediately  engaged  in  fighting.  Jewett 


THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 


panted  to  be  on  the  firing-line,  but  that  was  not 
to  be.  The  regiment  had  just  captured  an  im 
portant  railway  which  had  to  be  manned  and 
operated  at  once.  It  was  the  only  means  of 
supplying  a  whole  army  corps  with  bacon  and 
beans.  The  colonel  of  his  company  was  casting 
about  for  railroaders,  when  he  heard  of  Private 
Jewett.  He  was  surprised  to  find,  in  "The 
Farmers,"  a  man  of  such  wide  experience  as  a 
railway  official,  so  well  posted  on  the  general  sit 
uation,  and  so  keenly  alive  to  the  importance  of 
the  railroad  and  the  necessity  of  keeping  it  open. 
Within  a  week  Jewett  had  made  a  reputation. 
If  there  had  been  time  to  name  him,  he  would 
doubtless  have  been  called  superintendent  of 
transportation  ;  but  there  was  no  time  to  classify 
those  who  were  working  on  the  road.  They 
called  him  Jewett.  In  some  way  the  story  of 
the  one-time  captain's  experience  at  Blooming- 
ton  came  to  the  colonel's  ears,  and  he  sent  for 
Jewett.  As  a  result  of  the  interview,  the  young 
private  was  taken  from  the  ranks,  made  a  cap 
tain,  and  "  assigned  to  special  duty."  His  spe 
cial  duty  was  that  of  General  Manager  of  the  M. 
£  L.  Railroad,  with  headquarters  in  a  car. 


266  THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 

Jewett  called  upon  the  colonel  again,  uninvited 
this  time,  and  protested.  He  wanted  to  get  into 
the  fighting.  "  Don't  worry,  my  boy,"  said  the 
good-natured  colonel,  "  I  '11  take  the  fight  out  of 
you  later  on;  for  the  present,  Captain  Jewett, 
you  will  continue  to  run  this  railroad." 

The  captain  saluted  and  went  about  his 
business. 

There  had  been  some  fierce  fighting  at  the 
front,  and  the  Yankees  had  gotten  decidedly  the 
worst  of  it.  Several  attempts  had  been  made  to 
rush  re-enforcements  forward  by  rail,  but  with 
poor  success.  The  pilot  engines  had  all  been 
ditched.  As  a  last  desperate  chance,  Jewett 
determined  to  try  a  "  black  "  train.  Two  en 
gines  were  attached  to  a  troop-train,  and  Jewett 
seated  himself  on  the  pilot  of  the  forward  loco 
motive.  The  lights  were  all  put  out.  They 
were  to  have  no  pilot  engine,  but  were  to  slip 
past  the  ambuscade,  if  possible,  and  take  chances 
on  lifted  rails  and  absent  bridges.  It  was  near 
the  end  of  a  dark,  rainy  night.  The  train  was 
rolling  along  at  a  good  freight  clip,  the  engines 
working  as  full  as  might  be  without  throwing  fire, 
when  suddenly,  from  either  side  of  the  track,  a 


THE   STUFF  THAT  STANDS  267 

yellow  flame  flared  out,  followed  immediately  by 
the  awful  roar  of  the  muskets  from  whose  black 
mouths  the  murderous  fire  had  rushed.  The 
bullets  fairly  rained  on  the  jackets  of  the  engines, 
and  crashed  through  the  cab  windows.  The  en 
gineer  on  the  head  engine  was  shot  from  his 
seat.  Jewett,  in  a  hail  of  lead,  climbed  over  the 
running-board,  pulled  wide  the  throttle,  and 
whistled  "  off  brakes."  The  driver  of  the  second 
engine,  following  his  example,  opened  also,  and 
the  train  was  thus  whirled  out  of  range,  but  not 
until  Jewett  had  been  badly  wounded.  A  second 
volley  rained  upon  the  rearmost  cars,  but  did  little 
damage.  The  enemy  had  been  completely  out 
witted.  They  had  mistaken  the  train  for  a  pilot 
engine,  which  they  had  planned  to  let  pass  •  after 
which  they  were  to  turn  a  switch,  ditch,  and 
capture  the  train. 

There  was  great  rejoicing  in  the  hungry  army 
at  the  front  that  dawn,  when  the  long  train  laden 
with  soldiers  and  sandwiches  arrived.  The 
colonel  was  complimented  by  the  corps  com 
mander,  but  he  was  too  big  and  brave  to  accept 
promotion  for  an  achievement  in  which  he  had 
had  no  part  or  even  faith.  He  told  the  truth, 


268  THE   STUFF    THAT  STANDS 

the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth  ;  and, 
when  it  was  all  over,  there  was  no  more  "  Cap 
tain  "  Jewett.  When  he  came  out  of  the  hos 
pital  he  had  the  rank  of  a  major,  but  was  still 
"  assigned  to  special  duty." 

Major  Jewett's  work  became  more  important 
as  the  great  struggle  went  on.  Other  lines  of 
railway  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Yankees,  and 
all  of  them  in  that  division  of  the  army  came 
under  his  control.  They  were  good  for  him,  for 
they  made  him  a  very  busy  man  and  kept  him 
from  panting  for  the  firing-line.  In  conjunction 
with  General  D.,  the  famous  army  engineer,  who 
has  since  become  a  noted  railroad-builder,  he 
rebuilt  and  re-equipped  wrecked  railways,  bridged 
wide  rivers,  and  kept  a  way  open  for  men  and 
supplies  to  get  to  the  front. 

When  at  last  the  little,  ragged,  but  ever-heroic 
remnant  of  the  Confederate  army  surrendered, 
and  the  worn  and  weary  soldiers  set  their  faces  to 
the  north  again,  Major  Jewett's  name  was  known 
throughout  the  country. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  in  recognition  of  his 
ability  and  great  service  to  the  Union,  Major 
Jewett  was  made  a  brevet  colonel,  by  which 


THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS  269 

title  he  is  known  to  almost  every  railway  man  in 
America. 

Many  opportunities  came  to  Colonel  Jewett 
to  enter  once  more  the  field  in  which,  since 
his  school  days,  he  had  been  employed.  One 
by  one  these  offers  were  put  aside.  They  were 
too  easy.  He  had  been  so  long  in  the  wreck  of 
things  that  he  felt  out  of  place  on  a  prosperous,, 
well-regulated  line.  He  knew  of  a  little  strug 
gling  road  that  ran  east  from  Galena,  Illinois.  It 
was  called  the  Galena  and  something,  for  Galena 
was  at  that  time  the  most  prosperous  and  prom 
ising  town  in  the  wide,  wild  West. 

He  sought  and  secured  service  on  the  Galena 
line  and  began  anew.  The  road  was  one  of  the 
oldest  and  poorest  in  the  state,  and  one  of  the 
very  first  chartered  to  build  west  from  Chicago. 
It  was  sorely  in  need  of  a  young,  vigorous,  and 
experienced  man,  and  Colonel  Jewett 's  ability 
was  not  long  in  finding  recognition.  Step  by 
step  he  climbed  the  ladder  until  he  reached  the 
General  Managership.  Here  his  real  work  be 
gan.  Here  he  had  some  say,  and  could  talk  di 
rectly  to  the  President,  who  was  one  of  the  chief 


270  THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 

owners.  He  soon  convinced  the  company  that 
to  succeed  they  must  have  more  money,  build 
more,  and  make  business  by  encouraging  settlers 
to  go  out  and  plough  and  plant  and  reap  and  ship. 
The  United  States  government  was  aiding  in  the 
construction  of  a  railway  across  the  "  desert,"  as 
the  West  beyond  the  Missouri  River  was  then 
called.  Jewett  urged  his  company  to  push  out 
to  the  Missouri  River  and  connect  with  the  line 
to  the  Pacific,  and  they  pushed. 

Ten  years  from  the  close  of  the  war  Colonel 
Jewett  was  at  the  head  of  one  of  the  most  prom 
ising  railroads  in  the  country.  Prosperity  fol 
lowed  peace,  the  West  began  to  build  up,  the 
Pacific  Railroad  was  completed,  and  the  little 
Galena  line,  with  a  new  charter  and  a  new  name, 
had  become  an  important  link  connecting  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Pacific. 

For  nearly  half  a  century  Jewett  has  been  at 
the  front,  and  has  never  been  defeated.  The 
discredited  captain  of  that  promising  company 
of  car-boys  has  become  one  of  our  great  "  cap 
tains  of  industry."  lie  is  to-day  President  of 
one  of  the  most  important  railroads  in  the  world, 
whose  black  fliers  race  out  nightly  over  twin 


THE   STUFF   THAT  STANDS 


paths  of  steel,  threading  their  way  in  and  out  of 
not  less  than  nine  states;  with  nearly  nine  thou 
sand  miles  of  main  line.  He  has  succeeded  be 
yond  his  wildest  dreams  ;  and  his  success  is  due 
largely  to  the  fact  that  when,  in  his  youth,  he 
mounted  to  ride  to  fame  and  fortune,  he  did  not 
allow  the  first  jolt  to  jar  him  from  the  saddle. 
He  is  made  of  the  stuff  that  stands. 


gpiltoaukee  Mun 


THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 


HENRY  HAUTMAN  was  born  old.  He 
had  the  face  and  figure  of  a  voter  at  fifteen. 
His  skin  did  not  fit  his  face,  —  it  wrinkled  and 
resembled  a  piece  of  rawhide  that  had  been  left 
out  in  the  rain  and  sun. 

Henry's  father  was  a  freighter  on  the  Santa 
Fe  trail  when  Independence  was  the  back  door 
of  civilization,  opening  on  a  wilderness.  Little 
Henry  used  to  ride  on  the  high  seat  with  his 
father,  close  up  to  the  tail  of  a  Missouri  mule, 
the  seventh  of  a  series  of  eight,  including  the 
trailer  which  his  father  drove  in  front  of  the 
big  wagon.  It  was  the  wind  of  the  west  that 
tanned  the  hide  on  Henry's  face  and  made  him 
look  old  before  his  time. 

At  night  they  used  to  arrange  the  wagons  in  a 
ring,  in  which  the  freighters  slept. 

One  night  Henry  was  wakened  by  the  yells 
of  Indians,  and  saw  men  fighting.  Presently 


276  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

he  was  swung  to  the  back  of  a  cay  use  behind 
a  painted  warrior,  and  as  they  rode  away  the 
boy,  looking  back,  saw  the  wagons  burning  and 
guessed  the  rest. 

Later  the  lad  escaped  and  made  his  way  to 
Chicago,  where  he  began  his  career  on  the  rail, 
and  where  this  story  really  begins. 

It  was  extremely  difficult,  in  the  early  days, 
to  find  sober,  reliable  young  men  to  man  the 
few  locomotives  in  America  and  run  the  trains. 
A  large  part  of  the  population  seemed  to  be 
floating,  drifting  west,  west,  always  west.  So 
when  this  stout-shouldered,  strong-faced  youth 
asked  for  work,  the  round-house  foreman  took 
him  on  gladly.  Henry's  boyhood  had  been  so 
full  of  peril  that  he  was  absolutely  indifferent  to 
danger  and  a  stranger  to  fear.  He  was  not 
even  afraid  of  work,  and  at  the  end  of  eighteen 
months  he  was  marked  up  for  a  run.  He  had 
passed  from  the  wiping  gang  to  the  deck  of 
a  passenger  engine,  and  was  now  ready  for  the 
road. 

Henry  was  proud  of  his  rapid  promotion,  es 
pecially  this  last  lift,  that  would  enable  him  to 
race  in  the  moonlight  along  the  steel  trail,  though 


THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN  277 

he  recalled  that  it  had  cost  him  his  first  little 
white  lie. 

One  of  the  rules  of  the  road  said  a  man  must 
be  twenty-one  years  old  before  he  could  handle 
a  locomotive.  Henry  knew  his  book  well,  but 
he  knew  also  that  the  railroad  needed  his  ser 
vice  and  that  he  needed  the  job ;  so  when  the 
clerk  had  taken  his  "  Personal  Record,"  —  which 
was  only  a  mild  way  of  asking  where  he  would 
have  his  body  sent  in  case  he  met  the  fate  so 
common  at  that  time  on  a  new  line  in  a  new 
country,  —  he  gave  his  age  as  twenty,  hoping 
the  master-mechanic  would  allow  him  a  year  for 
good  behavior. 

Years  passed.  So  did  the  Indian  and  the 
buffalo.  The  railway  reached  out  across  the 
Great  American  Desert.  The  border  became 
blurred  and  was  rubbed  out.  The  desert  was 
dotted  with  homes.  Towns  began  to  grow  up 
about  the  water-tanks  and  to  bud  and  blow  on 
the  treeless  plain. 

Henry  Hautman  became  known  as  the  cool 
est  and  most  daring  driver  on  the  road.  He 
was  a  good  engineer  and  a  good  citizen.  He 
owned  his  home ;  and  while  his  pay  was  not 


278  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

what  an  engineer  draws  to-day  for  the  same  run 
made  in  half  the  time,  it  was  sufficient  unto  the 
day,  his  requirements,  and  his  wife's  taste. 

Only  one  thing  troubled  him.  He  had  bought 
a  big  farm  not  far  from  Chicago,  for  which  he 
was  paying  out  of  his  savings.  If  he  kept  well, 
as  he  had  done  all  his  life,  three  years  more  on 
the  Limited  would  let  him  out.  Then  he  could 
retire  a  year  ahead  of  time,  and  settle  down  in 
comfort  on  the  farm  and  watch  the  trains  go  by. 
It  would  be  his  salvation,  this  farm  by  the 
roadside  ;  for  the  very  thought  of  surrendering 
the  "  La  Salle  "  to  another  was  wormwood  .and 
gall  to  Henry.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to 
quit  and  go  over  to  the  N.  W.  or  the  P.  D.  & 
Q.,  where  they  had  no  age  limit  for  engineers. 
No  man  ever  thought  of  leaving  the  service  of 
the  Chicago,  Milwaukee  &  Wildwood.  The 
road  was  one  of  the  finest,  and  as  for  the  run, 
—  well,  they  used  to  say,  "  Drive  the  Wildwood 
Limited  and  die."  Henry  had  driven  it  for  a 
decade  and  had  not  died.  When  he  looked 
himself  over  he  declared  he  was  the  best  man. 
physically,  on  the  line.  But  there  was  the  law  in 
the  Book  of  Rules,  —  the  Bible  of  the  C.  M.  & 


THE   MILWAUKEE  RUN 


279 


W.,  —  and  no  man  might  go  beyond  the  limit  set 
for  the  retirement  of  engine-drivers ;  and  Henry 
Hautman,  the  favorite  of  the  "  old  man,"  would 
take  his  medicine.  They  were  a  loyal  lot  on 
the  Milwaukee  in  those  days.  Superintendent 
Van  Law  declared  them  clannish.  "  Kick  a 
man,"  said  he,  k<  in  St.  Paul,  and  his  friends  will 
feel  the  shock  in  the  lower  Mississippi." 

Time  winged  on,  and  as  often  as  Christmas 
came  it  reminded  the  old  engineer  that  he  was 
one  year  nearer  his  last  trip  ;  for  his  mother,  now 
sleeping  in  the  far  West,  had  taught  him  to 
believe  that  he  had  come  to  her  on  Christmas 
Eve. 

How  the  world  had  aged  in  threescore  years ! 
Sometimes  at  night  he  had  wild  dreams  of  his 
last  day  on  the  freight  wagon,  of  the  endless 
reaches  of  waving  wild  grass,  of  bands  of  buffalo 
racing  away  toward  the  setting  sun,  a  wild  deer 
drinking  at  a  running  stream,  and  one  lone 
Indian  on  the  crest  of  a  distant  dune,  dark, 
ominous,  awful.  Sometimes,  from  his  high  seat 
at  the  front  of  the  Limited,  he  caught  the  flash 
of  a  field  fire  and  remembered  the  burning 
wagons  in  the  wilderness. 


280  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

But  the  wilderness  was  no  more,  and  Henry 
knew  that  the  world's  greatest  civilizer,  the 
locomotive,  had  been  the  pioneer  in  all  this 
great  work  of  peopling  the  plains.  The  path 
finders,  the  real  heroes  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
had  fought  their  way  from  the  Missouri  River  to 
the  sundown  sea.  He  recalled  how  they  used 
to  watch  for  the  one  opposing  passenger  train. 
Now  they  flashed  by  his  window  as  the  mile-posts 
flashed  in  the  early  days,  for  the  line  had  been 
double-tracked  so  that  the  electric-lighted  hotels 
on  wheels  passed  up  and  down  regardless  of 
opposing  trains.  All  these  changes  had  been 
wrought  in  a  single  generation  ;  and  Henry  felt 
that  he  had  contributed,  according  to  his  light, 
to  the  great  work. 

But  the  more  he  pondered  the  perfection  of 
the  service,  the  comfort  of  travel,  the  magnifi 
cence  of  the  Wildwood  Limited,  the  more  he 
dreaded  the  day  when  he  must  take  his  little 
personal  effects  from  the  cab  of  the  La  Salle 
and  say  good-bye  to  her,  to  the  road,  and  hard 
est  of  all,  to  the  "  old  man,"  as  they  called  the 
master-mechanic. 

One  day  when  Henry  was  registering  in  the 


THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN  281 

round-house,  he  saw  a  letter  in  the  rack  for  him, 
and  carried  it  home  to  read  after  supper. 

When  he  read  it,  he  jumped  out  of  his  chair. 
"Why,  Henry!  "  said  his  wife,  putting  down  her 
knitting,  "  what  ever  's  the  matter,  —  open  switch 
or  red  light?  " 

"Worse,  Mary ;  it's  the  end  of  the  track." 

The  old  engineer  tossed  the  letter  over  to  his 
wife,  sat  down,  stretched  his  legs  out,  locked  his 
fingers,  and  began  rolling  his  thumbs  one  over 
the  other,  staring  at  the  stove. 

When  Mrs.  Hautman  had  finished  the  letter 
she  stamped  her  foot  and  declared  it  an  outrage. 
She  suggested  that  somebody  wanted  the  La 
Salle.  "  Well,"  she  said,  resigning  herself  to  her 
fate,  "  I  bet  I  have  that  coach-seat  out  of  the 
cab,  —  it  '11  make  a  nice  tete-a-tete  for  the  front 
room.  Superannuated  !  "  she  went  on  with  grow 
ing  disgust.  u  I  bet  you  can  put  any  man  on 
the  first  division  down  three  times  in  five." 

"  It 's  me  that 's  down,  Mary,  —  down  and 
out." 

"  Henry  Hautman,  I  'm  ashamed  of  you  !  you 
know  you  Ve  got  four  years  come  Christmas  — 
why  don't  you  fight  ?     Where  's  your  Brother- 


282  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

hood  you  've  been  paying  money  to  for  twenty 
years  ?  I  bet  a '  Q '  striker  comes  and  takes  your 
engine." 

"  No,  Mary,  we  're  beaten.  I  see  how  it  all 
happened  now.  You  see  I  began  at  twenty 
when  I  was  really  but  sixteen ;  that 's  where  I 
lose.  I  lied  to  the  '  old  man  '  when  we  were  both 
boys ;  now  that  lie  comes  back  to  me,  as  a 
chicken  comes  home  to  roost." 

"  But  can't  you  explain  that  now  ?  " 

"  Well,   not  easy.     It 's  down  in  the  records 

—  it 's  Scripture  now,  as  the  '  old  man  '  would  say. 

No,  the  best  I  can  do  is  to  take  my  medicine 

like  a  man  ;  I  Ve  got  a  month  yet  to  think  it 

over." 

After  that  they  sat  in  silence,  this  childless 
couple,  trying  to  fashion  to  themselves  how  it 
would  seem  to  be  superannuated. 

The  short  December  days  were  all  too  short 
for  Henry.  He  counted  the  hours,  marked  the 
movements  of  the  minute-hand  on  the  face  of 
his  cab  clock,  and  measured  the  miles  he  would 
have,  not  to  "  do  "  but  to  enjoy,  before  Christ 
mas.  As  the  weeks  went  by  the  old  engineer 
became  a  changed  man.  He  had  always  been 


THE  MILWAUKEE  RUN  283 

cheerful,  happy,  and  good-natured.  Now  he  be 
came  thoughtful,  silent,  melancholy.  There  was 
not  a  man  on  the  first  division  but  grieved  be 
cause  he  was  going,  but  no  man  would  dare  say 
so  to  Henry.  Sympathy  is  about  the  hardest 
thing  a  stout  heart  ever  has  to  endure. 

While  Henry  was  out  on  his  last  trip  his  wife 
waited  upon  the  master-mechanic  and  asked  him 
to  bring  his  wife  over  and  spend  Christmas  Eve 
with  Henry  and  help  her  to  cheer  him  up ;  and 
the  "  old  man  "  promised  to  call  that  evening. 

Although  there  were  half-a-dozen  palms  itch 
ing  for  the  throttle  of  the  La  Salle,  no  man  had 
yet  been  assigned  to  the  run.  And  the  same 
kindly  feeling  of  sympathy  that  prompted  this 
delay  prevented  the  aspirants  from  pressing  their 
claims.  Once,  in  the  lodge  room,  a  young 
member  eager  for  a  regular  run  opened  the 
question,  but  saw  his  mistake  when  the  older 
members  began  to  hiss  like  geese,  while  the 
Worthy  Master  smote  the  table  with  his  maul. 
Henry  saw  the  La  Salle  cross  the  turn-table  and 
back  into  the  round-house,  and  while  he  "looked 
her  over,"  examining  every  link  and  pin,  each 
lever  and  link-lifter,  the  others  hurried  away ;  for 


284  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

it  was  Christmas  Eve,  and  nobody  cared  to  say 
good-bye  to  the  old  engineer. 

When  he  had  walked  around  her  half-a  dozen 
times,  touching  her  burnished  mainpins  with  the 
back  of  his  hand,  he  climbed  into  the  cab  and 
began  to  gather  up  his  trinkets,  his  comb  and 
tooth-brush,  a  small  steel  monkey-wrench,  and  a 
slender  brass  torch  that  had  been  given  to  him 
by  a  friend.  Then  he  sat  upon  the  soft  cushioned 
coach- seat  that  his  wife  had  coveted,  and  looked 
along  the  hand-railing.  He  leaned  from  the 
cab  window  and  glanced  along  the  twin  stubs  of 
steel  that  passed  through  the  open  door  and 
stopped  short  at  the  pit,  symbolizing  the  end  of 
his  run  on  the  rail.  The  old  boss  wiper  came 
with  his  crew  to  clean  the  La  Salle,  but  when  he 
saw  the  driver  there  in  the  cab  he  passed  him  by. 

Long  he  sat  in  silence,  having  a  last  visit  with 
La  Salle,  her  brass  bands  gleaming  in  the  twi 
light.  For  years  she  had  carried  him  safely 
through  snow  and  sleet  and  rain,  often  from 
dawn  till  dusk,  and  sometimes  from  dusk  till 
dawn  again.  She  had  been  his  life's  companion 
while  on  the  road,  who  now,  "  like  some  familiar 
face  at  parting,  gained  a  graver  grace." 


THE  MILWAUKEE   RUN  285 

Presently  the  lamp-lighters  came  and  began 
lighting  the  oil  lamps  that  stood  in  brackets  along 
the  wall ;  but  before  their  gleam  reached  his  face 
the  old  engineer  slid  down  and  hurried  away 
home  with  never  a  backward  glance. 

That  night  when  Mrs.  Hautman  had  passed 
the  popcorn  and  red  apples,  and  they  had  all 
eaten  and  the  men  had  lighted  cigars,  the  en 
gineer's  wife  brought  a  worn  Bible  out  and  drew 
a  chair  near  the  master-mechanic.  The  "  old 
man,"  as  he  was  called,  looked  at  the  book, 
then  at  the  woman,  who  held  it  open  on  her 
lap. 

"Do  you  believe  this  book?"  she  asked 
earnestly. 

"  Absolutely,"  he  answered. 

"  All  that  is  written  here  ?  " 

"All,"  said  the  man. 

Then  she  turned  to  the  fly-leaf  and  read  the 
record  of  Henry's  birth,  —  the  day,  the  month, 
and  the  year. 

Henry  came  and  looked  at  the  book  and  the 
faded  handwriting,  trying  to  remember ;  but  it 
was  too  far  away. 


286  THE   MILWAUKEE   RUN 

The  old  Bible  had  been  discovered  that  day 
deep  down  in  a  trunk  of  old  trinkets  that  had 
been  sent  to  Henry  when  his  mother  died,  years 
ago. 

The  old  engineer  took  the  book  and  held  it 
on  his  knees,  turned  its  limp  leaves,  and  dropped 
upon  them  the  tribute  of  a  strong  man's  tear. 

The  "old  man"  called  for  the  letter  he  had 
written,  erased  the  date,  set  it  forward  four  years, 
and  handed  it  back  to  Henry. 

"  Here,  Hank,"  said  he,  "  here  's  a  Christmas 
gift  for  you." 

So  when  the  Wildwood  Limited  was  limbered 
up  that  Christmas  morning,  Henry  leaned  from 
the  window,  leaned  back,  tugged  at  the  throttle 
again,  smiled  over  at  the  fireman,  and  said,  "  Now, 
Billy,  watch  her  swallow  that  cold,  stiff  steel  at 
about  a  mile  a  minute." 


BOOKS    BY    CY    WARMAN 

SHORT    RAILS 

izmo.    $1.25 

OPINIONS    OF    THE    PRESS 

N.  Y.  TIMES  REVIEW. 

It  is  good  for  the  soul  that  we  should  look  into  other 
worlds  than  our  own,  and  Mr.  Warman  knows  how 
to  put  us  beside  fireman  and  engineer  and  how  to  make 
us  feel  the  poetry  as  well  as  the  power  of  the  tireless 
giants  that  fulfil  for  us  moderns  the  ancient  dream  of 
the  fire-breathing  brazen  bulls  yoked  for  the  service 
of  man. 

THE  OUTLOOK. 

A  dozen  or  more  spirited  tales,  tersely  told,  and  with 
that  surety  of  touch  which  comes  only  from  intimate 
knowledge.  .  .  .  The  romance,  danger,  bravery,  plot- 
tings,  and  nobility  of  action  incident  to  life  on  the  rail 
are  all  realistically  depicted,  and  the  reader  feels  the 
charm  which  attaches  to  the  new  or  strange. 

BOSTON  ADVERTISER. 

The  reader  will  find  much  pleasure,  and  no  disappoint 
ment,  in  reading  these  pages. 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
*53-*57  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


BOOKS    BY    CY    WARMAN 

THE 
WHITE    MAIL 


I2mo.     $1.25 


OPINIONS    OF    THE    PRESS 

THE  NATION. 

Cy  Warman  can  always  impart  a  living  interest  to  a 
story  through  his  close  intimacy  with  locomotives,  yard- 
masters,  signals,  switches,  with  all  that  pertains  to  rail 
roading,  in  a  word  —  from  a  managers'  meeting  to  a 
frog.  The  tender  enthusiasm  he  feels  for  the  denizens 
of  his  iron  jungle  is  contagious. 

THE  OUTLOOK 

Mr.  Cy  Warman,  by  long  personal  experience,  ac 
quired  a  close  and  exact  knowledge  of  the  life  of  rail 
road  men.  "The  White  Mail  "  brings  out  realistically 
the  actual  life  of  the  engineer,  the  brakeman,  and  the 
freight  handler. 

THE    CONGREGATIONALIST 

Cy    Warman    writes    excellent    railroad   stories,   of 
course,  and  his  new  one,  "  The  White  Mail,"  is  short, 
lively,  and  eminently  readable. 
ST.    Louis  GLOBE-DEMOCRAT 

In  "The  White  Mail,"  Cy  Warman,  in  the  pleasant, 
witty  style  for  which  this  poet  of  the  Rockies  has  be 
come  noted,  has  presented  a  tender,  touching  picture. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

153-157  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


BOOKS     BY    CY    WARMAN 

TALES  OF   AN 
ENGINEER 

With    Rhymes    of  the    Rail 

isrno.    $1.25 
OPINIONS    OF    THE     PRESS 

THE    CONGREGATIONALIST 

There  is  true  power  in  Cy  Warman's  "  Tales  of  an 
Engineer,"  and  the  reader  yields  willingly  to  the  attrac 
tion  of  its  blended  novelty,  spirit,  and  occasional  pathos. 
It  does  not  lack  humor,  and  every  page  is  worth  reading. 

THE  CHURCHMAN 

A  new  departure  in  literature  should  be  interesting  even 
if  lacking  in  the  brilliant  off-hand  sketchiness  of  these 
pages.  One  steps  into  a  new  life.  There  is  not  a 
dull  page  in  this  book,  and  much  of  it  is  of  more  than 
ordinary  interest. 

NEW  YORK  COMMERCIAL  ADVERTISER 

There  is  a  rugged  directness  about  the  description  of 
rushing  runs  on  the  rail,  through  which  one  can  hear 
the  thump-thump  of  the  machinery  as  the  engine 
dashes  over  the  rails,  and  which  seems  to  be  illumined 
by  the  glow  of  the  headlights  and  the  colored  signals. 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

153-157  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


BOOKS     BY    CY    WAR  MAN 

THE  EXPRESS 
MESSENGER 

And  Other  Tales  of  the  Rail 


iamo.    $1.25 


OPINIONS     OF    THE     PRESS 

BOSTON  TRANSCRIPT 

The  author's  work  is  familiarly  and  pleasantly  known 
to  magazine  readers  for  the  realistic  details  of  Western 
railroad  life,  which  give  them  a  dashing,  vital  movement, 
though  they  are  often  highly  romantic.  The  romantic 
in  them,  however,  seems  very  human  —  indeed,  there 
is  a  ring  of  true  feeling  in  these  little  tales. 
BROOKLYN  DAILY  EAGLE 

Mr.  Warman's  work  has  about  it  the  merit  of  a 
genuine  realism,  and  it  is  as  full  of  romance  and  adven 
ture  as  the  most  exacting  reader  could  desire.  It  is  a 
volume  of  sketches  that  is  well  worth  reading,  not  only 
because  they  are  well  written  and  full  of  action,  but  for 
the  pictures  they  give  of  a  life  that  the  world  really 
knows  very  little  about. 
PHILADELPHIA  PRESS 

The  poet  appears  in  the  descriptive  passages,  and 
there  is  a  melodious  rhythm  to  his  prose  style  that  is 
pleasurable  in  a  high  degree.  Mr.  Warman  has  a 
field  of  his  own,  and  he  is  master  of  it. 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
153-157  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


BOOKS    BY    CY    WARMAN 

FRONTIER 
STORIES 

i2mo.    $1.25 


OPINIONS     OF    THE     PRESS 

REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 

Nobody  knows  his  frontier  life  better  than  Mr.  War- 
man,  and  his  yarns  of  Indians,  striking  miners,  cow 
boys,  half-breeds,  and  railroad  men,  are  full  of  vivid 
reality.  There  is  plenty  of  romance  and  excitement  in 
this  score  of  stories. 

THE  CHURCHMAN 

Eighteen  tales  which  certainly  are  excellent  in  their 
kind,  quick,  breezy,  full  of  the  local  color,  yet  with 
delightful  touches  of  universal  humanity. 

CINCINNATI  COMMERCIAL  TRIBUNE 

They  are  honest  little  chapters  of  life  simply  written, 
an  effective  word  of  slang  stuck  in  here  and  there 
where  it  does  not  seem  at  all  out  of  place  ;  honest, 
open-hearted,  steady-eyed  narratives  all,  with  the  breeze 
of  the  Western  prairies  in  every  line,  as  well  as  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  his  triumphs  and  his  failures 
impressing  themselves  upon  you  at  every  turn. 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

J53-i57  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


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